THE  WOMEN 

HO  MAKE  OUR 
NOVELS 


NOH-IN 
FERiOR 

A-SEQV 

ENJTES 


C^S"Y  I 

ill 


GRANT  OVERTON 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 
THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
RIVERSIDE 


MODERN  AMERICAN  WRITERS 

THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 


The  Women  Who  Make 
Our  Novels 


BY 

GRANT  M.  OVERTON 


NEW  YORK 

MOFFAT,  YARD  &  COMPANY 
1919 


COPYRIGHT,  1918, 

BY 
MOFFAT,  YARD  &  COMPANY 


Firtt  printing  December  IS,  1918 
Second  printing  April  £5,  1919 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I  PACK 

Edith  Wharton  .........     .     .        i 

CHAPTER  n 

Alice  Brown      ..........     .      n 

CHAPTER  m 
Ellen  Glasgow    ...........      20 

CHAPTER  IV 

Gertrude  Atherton    ........     .     .      41 

CHAPTER  V 

Mary  Roberts  Rinehart      ........      54 

CHAPTER  VI 

Kathleen  N  orris      ..........      68 

CHAPTER  VTI 

Margaret  Deland     .........     .      78 


CHAPTER 

Gene  Stratton-Porter     .......     .     .      88 

CHAPTER  DC 

Eleanor  H.  Porter  ........     .     .     108 

CHAPTER  X 

Kate  Douglas  Wiggin    ........     .     121 

CHAPTER  XI 

Mary  Johnston       ......     .     ...     132 

v 


vi  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  XH  PAGE 

Corra  Harris 153 

CHAPTER  xm 
Mary  Austin 164 

CHAPTER  XTV 

Mary  S.  Watts 177 

CHAPTER  XV 

Mary  E.  Wilkins  Freeman 198 

• 

CHAPTER  XVI 

Anna  Katharine  Green 204 

CHAPTER  XVH 

Helen  R.  Martin 215 

CHAPTER  xvrn 
Sophie  Ken 226 

CHAPTER  XIX 

Marjorie  Benton  Cooke 238 

.      CHAPTER  XX 

Grace  S.  Richmond 246 

CHAPTER  XXI 

Witta  Sibert  Gather 254 

CHAPTER  XXTI 

Clara  Louise  Burnham 267 

CHAPTER  XXHI 

Demetra  Vaka 284 

CHAPTER  XXTV 

Edna  Ferber  .....     292 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS  vii 

CHAPTER  XXV  PAGE 

Dorothy  Can  field  Fisher 298 

CHAPTER  XXVI 

Amelia  E.  Barr 304 

CHAPTER  XXVII 

Alice  Began  Rice 313 

CHAPTER   XXVIEI 

Alice  Duer  Miller 320 

CHAPTER  XXIX 

Eleanor  Hallowell  Abbott 326 

CHAPTER  XXX 

Harriet  T.  Comstock 334 

CHAPTER   XXXI 

Honore  Willsie        342 

CHAPTER   XXXH 

Frances  Hodgson  Burnett 357 

CHAPTER  XXXIII 

Mary  E.  Waller 369 

CHAPTER  XXXIV 

Zona  Gale 377 

CHAPTER  XXXV 

Mary  Heaton  Vorse 386 


INTRODUCTION 


THIS  book,  the  rather  unpremeditated  produc 
tion  of  several  months'  work,  is  by  a  man 
who  is  not  a  novelist  and  who  is  therefore 
entirely  unfitted  to  write  about  women  who  are  nov 
elists.  Several  excuses  may  be  urged;  the  author  is, 
by  general  agreement,  young.  He  has  to  do  with 
many  novels,  being,  indeed,  a  sort  of  new  and  strange 
creature,  a  literary  reporter  self-styled,  a  person  con 
nected  with  a  newspaper  and  charged  with  the  task 
of  describing  new  books  for  the  readers  thereof.  As 
he  could  make  no  critical  pretensions  he  had  to  fall 
back  upon  a  process  peculiar  to  newspaper  work,  the 
attempt  at  a  simple  putting  before  the  public  of  facts, 
of  things  lately  said  and  done — in  short,  of  news.  He 
had  to  regard  a  new  book  as  a  piece  of  news  to  be 
communicated  as  honestly  and  as  entertainingly  as  any 
other  occurrence.  And  so,  here.  He  has  tried  to  be 
a  good  reporter  of  the  personalities,  performances  and 
methods  of  work  of  some  of  the  best  known  American 
women  novelists. 

An  effort  has  been  made  to  include  in  this  book 
all  the  living  American  women  novelists  whose  writ 
ing,  by  the  customary  standards,  is  artistically  fine. 
An  equal  effort  has  been  made  to  include  all  the 
living  American  women  novelists  whose  writing  has 
attained  a  wide  popularity.  The  author  does  not 

ix 


x  INTRODUCTION 

contend,  nor  will  he  so  much  as  allow,  that  the  pro 
duction  of  writing  artistically  fine  is  a  greater  achieve 
ment  than  the  satisfaction  of  many  thousands  of 
readers.  It  may  be  more  lasting;  it  is  not  more  meri 
torious;  and  to  attempt  to  institute  comparisons  be 
tween  the  two  things  is  absurd.  The  critic  may  be 
justified  in  treating  of  Edith  Wharton  and  ignoring 
Gene  Stratton-Porter.  The  literary  reporter  who 
should  do  such  a  thing  doesn't  know  his  job. 

It  is,  therefore,  to  be  feared  that  this  is  no  book 
for  highbrows.  But  a  lower  forehead  and  a  broader 
outlook  have  their  advantages.  In  the  striking  pop 
ularity  of  a  particular  storyteller  a  thoughtful  ob 
server  may  see  important  and  significant  evidences  of 
the  tendencies  of  his  time.  And  that  may  be  much 
more  worth  his  while  than  the  most  careful  specula 
tion  as  to  who  will  be  read  fifty  years  from  now. 

The  order  in  which  authors  are  taken  up  in  the 
book  is  accidental  and  therefore  meaningless.  The 
reader  is  recommended  to  follow  his  own  inclination 
in  perusing  the  chapters.  They  are  entirely  detached 
from  each  other,  as  are  the  subjects  considered  except 
for  an  occasional  reference,  in  discussing  one,  to  an 
other's  work.  These  references,  and  in  fact  all  the 
discussions  of  various  books,  are  to  be  taken  as  ex 
pository  and  not  critical.  If  a  thing  is  stated  to  be 
good,  bad  or  indifferent  the  statement  is  made  as  a 
statement  of  fact  and  not  of  personal  opinion. 

The  justification  of  this  book  is  the  need  of  it.  It 
is  ridiculous  that  there  should  be  nothing  easily  ac 
cessible  about  such  writers  as  Edith  Wharton,  Ellen 
Glasgow,  Kathleen  Norris,  Mary  Johnston,  Mary  S. 


INTRODUCTION 


XI 


Watts,  Anna  Katharine  Green,  Clara  Louise  Burn- 
ham,  Amelia  E.  Barr  and  Edna  Ferber.  The  con 
densations  of  Who's  Who  in  America  are  dry  bones; 
books  on  living  American  writers  are  all  "studies" 
or  compilations  of  a  highly  selective  sort;  their  authors 
want  to  be  revered  by  posterity  as  persons  of  won 
derful  critical  perception  and  judgment.  The  authors 
themselves  have  not  the  time  to  satisfy  their  readers' 
curiosity  and  their  publishers  hesitate  lest  they  may 
not  remain  their  publishers! 

And  so  the  literary  reporter  steps  in.  Some  of  the 
chapters  in  this  book,  generally  condensed  in  content, 
have  appeared  in  the  columns  of  Books  and  the  Book 
World,  the  literary  magazine  of  The  Sun,  New  York, 
of  which  he  is  the  editor.  In  their  preparation  he 
has  been  wonderfully  helped  by  the  authors  them 
selves  and  by  other  individuals  and  publishing  houses, 
for  which  he  makes  acknowledgment  and  returns  his 
thanks  in  a  note  elsewhere  in  the  book. 


ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

My  indebtedness  to  various  persons  and  sources  is 
repeatedly  made  manifest  in  the  text.  Only  the  co 
operation  of  publishers  has  made  possible  the  prepara 
tion  of  these  sketches  in  a  short  time.  I  wish  partic 
ularly  to  thank  the  following  for  important  help : 

Houghton  Mifflin  Company  and  Mr.  Roger  L. 
Scaife  and  Mrs.  Helen  Bishop-Dennis  for  material  on 
Mary  Roberts  Rinehart,  Eleanor  H.  Porter,  Kate 
Douglas  Wiggin,  Mary  Johnston,  Mary  Austin,  Willa 
Sibert  Gather,  Clara  Louise  Burnham  and  Demetra 
Vaka. 

Doubleday,  Page  &  Company  and  Mr.  Harry  E. 
Maule  for  material  on  Ellen  Glasgow,  Kathleen  Nor- 
ris,  Gene  Stratton-Porter,  Corra  Harris,  Helen  R. 
Martin,  Sophie  Kerr,  Marjorie  Benton  Cooke,  Grace 
S.  Richmond  and  Harriet  T.  Comstock. 

The  Macmillan  Company  and  Mr.  Harold  S. 
Latham  for  material  on  Alice  Brown  and  Mary  S. 
Watts  and  Zona  Gale, 

Harper  &  Brothers  and  Miss  Hesper  Le  Gallienne 
for  material  on  Gertrude  Atherton,  Margaret  Deland 
and  Mary  E.  Wilkins  Freeman. 

The  Century  Company  for  material  on  Alice  Hegan 
Rice,  Alice  Duer  Miller  and  Eleanor  Hallowell  Abbott. 

Frederick  A.  Stokes  Company  and  Mr.  William 
Morrow  for  material  on  Gertrude  Atherton,  Edna 

xiii 


xiv  ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

Ferber,  Honore  Willsie  and  Frances  Hodgson  Bur 
nett. 

Dodd,  Mead  &  Company  for  material  on  Anna 
Katharine  Green,  Gertrude  Atherton,  Mary  E.  Wil- 
kins  Freeman  and  Eleanor  Hallowell  Abbott. 

Henry  Holt  &  Company  and  Miss  Ellen  Knowles 
Eayrs  for  material  on  Dorothy  Canfield  Fisher. 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons  for  material  on  Edith 
Wharton. 

Little,  Brown  &  Company  for  material  on  Mary  E. 
Waller. 


THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR 
NOVELS 


CHAPTER  I 

EDITH   WHARTON 

THE  order  of  authors  in  this  book  is  accidental 
and  the  circumstance  that  the  first  chapter 
of  the  book  is  upon  Edith  Wharton  is  also 
accidental,  also  and  therefore;  which  is  to  say  that  it 
is  not  accidental  at  all.  For  if  there  is  any  lesson 
which  life  teaches  us  it  is  the  existence  of  an  order, 
a  plan,  in  unsuspected  places.  To  say,  therefore,  that 
a  thing  is  accidental  is  to  pay  it  the  most  glorious 
compliment.  It  is  to  say  that  it  is  ordered  or  ordained, 
decreed,  immutably  fixed  upon  from  the  Beginning — 
hot  of  a  book  but  of  a  Universe.  There  is  about 
anything  accidental  something  absolutely  divine.  To 
dart  off  at  a  tangent  (for  a  mere  moment)  there 
was  this  much  in  the  divine  right  of  kings — an  acci 
dent  at  the  beginning  of  it.  Had  the  kings  contented 
themselves  with  this  accidental  character,  had  they 
preserved  the  spontaneity  that  surrounded  the  first 
of  their  crowd,  there  would  be  more  of  them  left! 
But  such  reflections  and  the  working  out  of  them,  a 


2      THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

pleasurable  kind  of  intellectual  counterpoint,  may  be 
left  to  Gilbert  Keith  Chesterton. 

We  are  concerned  wholly  with  the  women  who 
make  our  novels  and,  by  the  accident  of  title  if  you 
like,  more  with  the  women  than  with  their  novels. 
The  two  are  no  more  perfectly  separable  than  milk 
and  cream  and  very  often  the  best  thing  to  do  is  not 
to  try  to  separate  them,  but  rather  to  stir  them  up 
together.  As  the  only  excuses  for  a  book — other  than 
a  work  of  fiction — are  either  that  it  presents  facts  or 
suggests  ideas,  we  shall  try  to  talk  rather  simply 
(much  more  simply  than  in  our  first  paragraph  of  this 
chapter)  about  American  women  novelists  and  their 
books — simply  and  honestly.  If  we  say  little  about 
"literature"  it  is  because  what  is  usually  described  as 
literature  is  nothing  better  than  a  pale  reflection  of  life. 

Edith  Wharton  comes  first  in  this  book  that  she 
may  the  better  stand  alone.  She  has  always  stood 
alone.  The  distinguishing  thing  about  her  is  the  dis 
tinguishing  thing  about  her  work — aloneness,  which 
is  not  the  same  thing  as  aloofness.  She  is  not  aloof. 
At  56  she  is  working  in  France,  doing  that  which 
her  hand  finds  to  do.  Her  aloneness  arises  from  the 
facts  of  her  life.  Never  were  so  many  favoring  stars 
clustered  together  as  for  her  when  she  was  born.  She 
had  everything. 

She  was  born  in  New  York  (item  i)  in  1862,  Edith 
Newbold  Jones,  the  daughter  of  Frederic  Jones  and 
Lucretia  Stevens  Rhinelander  Jones  (item  2).  She  was 
educated  at  home  (item  3)  and  was  married  to  Ed 
ward  Wharton  of  Boston  in  1885  (item  4 — no!  count 
less  items  of  luck  had  already  intervened!).  In  other 


EDITH  WHARTON  3 

words,  Mrs.  Wharton,  granddaughter  of  General 
Ebenezer  Stevens  of  Revolutionary  fame,  came  of 
distinguished  family,  was  the  child  of  extremely  well- 
to-do  parents,  had  every  advantage  that  careful  in 
struction,  generous  travel  and  cultivated  surroundings 
could  confer  upon  her.  Much  of  her  life  has  been 
spent  in  Italy ;  a  perfect  acquaintance  with  great  paint 
ing  and  architecture,  everywhere  so  discernible  in 
her  work,  has  always  with  her  been  the  customary 
thing.  Private  tutors  in  America  and  abroad  spared 
her  the  leveling  processes  of  forty  lines  of  Virgil 
a  day  and  ten  mathematical  sums  each  night.  They 
touched  her  as  a  sculptor  touches  his  clay,  firmly  and 
caressingly  and  only  to  bring  out  her  peculiar  excel 
lences,  only  to  help  her  native  genius  to  expression. 
Think  of  it — Italy  and  all  the  other  rich  backgrounds, 
means,  social  position,  fine  traditions,  the  right  sur 
roundings,  the  right  mentors,  the  right  tastes  and  a 
considerable  gift  to  begin  with!  What  a  mold!  It 
is  exquisite,  perhaps  unmatched  in  the  instance  of 
any  other  novelist.  It  is  what  we  dream  of  for 
genius  and  it  is  what  genius  would  smash  to  frag 
ments  !  The  very  fact  that  Mrs.  Wharton  had  a  mold 
is  the  best  evidence  that  she  is  not  a  genius  in  the 
most  discriminating  sense  of  a  most  indiscriminately 
used  word. 

She  is  not  a  genius  but  she  moves  and  always  has 
moved  in  a  world  of  geniuses.  From  childhood  she 
had,  of  course,  an  easy  familiarity  with  French,  Ger 
man  and  Italian.  The  ordinary  bounds  upon  read 
ing — the  only  way  of  keeping  the  company  of  the 
supremely  great  of  earth — were  thus  swept  a  meas- 


4      THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

tireless  distance  away.  French,  German  and  Italian 
as  well  as  English  literature  were  accessible  to  her — 
and  the  French  includes  the  Russian,  of  course.  She 
read  widely  and  we  are  told  that  "when  she  came 
upon  Goethe  she  was  more  prepared  than  the  average 
to  take  to  heart  his  counsels  of  perfection  and  reach 
after  a  high  and  effective  culture!"  Reach?  Not 
upward,  surely;  there  was  nothing  above  her.  Out 
ward,  perhaps.  At  any  rate,  here  was  Mrs.  Wharton 
in  the  actual  presence  and  company  of  a  genius  if 
ever  there  lived  one.  It  is  agonizing  to  think  what 
Goethe  would  have  said  were  he  alive  these  days.  He 
would  have  said  the  supremely  scathing  thing,  the 
thing  that  would  have  withered  forever  the  moral 
cancer  of  his  countrymen,  and  we  cannot  articulate 
it.  A  magical  mind  and  a  magical  tongue  and  a  mag 
ical  pen — Goethe.  He  was  always  saying  sesame. 
We,  who  have  not  his  genius,  have  to  batter  down 
the  barred  door. 

It  is  to  Goethe  above  all  other  literary  influence 
that  Mrs.  Wharton  feels  indebted.  Strike  out  the 
word  "literary."  The  influence  of  Goethe  is  not  a 
literary  influence,  but  an  influence  proceeding  directly 
from  the  heart  of  life  itself.  What  sort  of  an  influence 
is  it?  High,  pure,  clean  and  yet  human.  Intangible, 
too;  about  all  you  really  can  say  of  it  is  that  it  is 
like  the  company  of  some  people  who  bring  out  all 
the  best  that  is  in  you.  They  do  not  put  into  you 
anything  new.  They  draw  you  out,  or  rather,  they 
draw  something  out  of  you.  At  the  risk  of  shocking 
the  fastidious  reader  and  to  the  joy  of  the  literally- 
minded  we  may  say  that  they  are  the  spiritual  equiva- 


EDITH  WHARTON  5. 

lent  of  the  mustard  plaster.  They  have  an  equal 
drawing  power  and  efficacy,  but  they  do  not  draw  out 
the  ache  but  the  great  glow  and  spirit  which  are  the 
incontestable  proof  of  the  existence  in  the  human 
soul  of  something  immortal. 

Mrs.  Wharton  read  widely,  as  we  say,  and  she  read 
in  the  main  "standard"  fiction.  Her  taste  is  for 
George  Eliot  and  the  ethical  teachings  of  that  earlier 
woman  novelist.  Her  taste  is  equally  for  Gustave 
Flaubert,  the  "craftsman's  master,"  the  writer  who 
teaches  writers  how  to  write.  You  learn  the  inner 
most  secrets  of  your  writing  craft  from  Flaubert  and 
then  you  put  aside  everything  you  have  learned  from 
the  master  and  learn  from  life.  Balzac,  Thackeray, 
Dickens  and  Meredith  have  been  Mrs.  Wharton's 
steady  diet;  she  has  re-read  them  so  often  as  repeat 
edly  and  contentedly  to  fall  into  arrears  with  respect 
to  current  fiction.  She  has  had  always  a  great  interest 
in  biology  and  in  whatever  touches  upon  the  history 
of  human  thought.  This,  in  brief,  is  the  substance  of 
Edith  Wharton  the  woman  and  the  background  of 
Edith  Wharton  the  novelist. 

We  shall  not  discuss  Mrs.  Wharton's  books  in  de 
tail  in  this  chapter  and  book  for  the  best  of  reasons — 
they  leave  no  room  for  two  opinions  of  her  work.  Of 
almost  no  other  novelist  whom  we  shall  consider  would 
it  be  possible  to  say  this;  indeed  of  some  American 
women  novelists  there  are  nearer  twenty-two  than 
two  opinions.  Some  writers,  like  Gertrude  Atherton, 
are  subjects  of  perpetual  controversy;  others  are  the 
cause  of  wide  but  sharply  defined  cleavages  of  opinion 
— Gene  Stratton-Porter,  for  example.  The  work  of 


6      THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

still  others  is  more  properly  matter  for  speculation 
as  to  what  they  may  do  than  estimate  of  what  they 
have  done.  But  Mrs.  Wharton  falls  in  none  of  these 
classifications.  There  is  only  one  opinion  about  her 
work:  it  is  excellent  but  lifeless;  it  is  Greek  marble 
with  no  Pygmalion  near.  From  this  sweeping  ver 
dict  three — and  only  three — of  her  books  are  to  be 
excepted.  They  are  Ethan  Frome  and  The  House 
of  Mirth  and  Summer.  In  these  three  books  you  can 
feel  the  pulse  beat.  In  Ethan  Frome  the  pulse  is  the 
feeble  quiver  of  the  crushed  and  dying  human  heart; 
in  The  House  of  Mirth  there  is  the  slow  throb  of 
human  suffering  and  anguish,  mental  no  less  than 
spiritual;  in  Summer  there  is  the  excited  and  acceler 
ated  vibration  of  human  passion. 

It  will  be  taken  as  a  very  dogmatic  piece  of  busi 
ness  on  our  part  when  we  say  that  her  work  leaves 
no  room  for  two  opinions.  Was  there  ever  a  bit  of 
writing,  some  will  ask,  which  could  not  give  birth  in 
the  minds  of  readers  to  more  than  one  opinion? 
Often,  indeed,  twin  opinions  are  born  to  the  same 
reader ! 

We  must  answer  that  here  and  hereafter  we  are 
dealing  with  easily  ascertainable  facts  and  not  in 
dulging  in  criticism.  Mrs.  Wharton's  work  leaves 
room  for  only  one  opinion  simply  because  those  who 
might  form  another  opinion  do  not  read  her.  And 
those  who  do  not  read  her  take  their  opinions  from 
those  who  do  and  then,  following  the  instinct  of 
our  natures,  declare  (quite  honestly)  the  borrowed 
opinion  as  their  own.  Our  real  audacity  consists  in 
the  assertion,  implied  in  what  we  have  said,  that  of 


EDITH  WHARTON  7 

all  the  thousands  who  read  Mrs.  Wharton  not  one 
believes  in  his  heart  for  one  solitary  instant  that  the 
mass  of  her  fiction  is  alive.  They  look  upon  her  work 
as  they  look  upon  the  Winged  Victory;  it  is  ravish- 
ingly  beautiful,  it  has  perfection  of  form,  it  has  every 
attribute  of  beauty  possible  of  attainment  by  the  con 
summate  artist,  but  it  has  also  the  severe  limitations 
of  any  form  of  art. 

We  must  pause  here  a  moment  to  be  emphatic. 
Art  is  not  life  and  never  can  be.  Life  is  not  art 
and  never  can  be.  This  is  just  as  true  of  writing  as 
of  painting  or  sculpture.  All  art  is  necessarily  dead. 
All  art  is  necessarily  a  representation  of  life  or  some 
aspect  of  it.  The  moment  a  person  begins  to  paint  or 
to  model  or  to  write  and  allow  himself  to  think  of 
any  kind  of  art  in  what  he  is  doing,  he  goes  into  a 
fourth  dimension — and  life  exists  in  only  three  dimen 
sions.  This  is  not  to  say  that  art  is  undesirable;  it 
is  highly  desirable,  is,  in  fact,  almost  as  necessary 
to  our  souls  as  a  fourth  dimension  is  to  the  mathe 
matician.  The  fourth  dimension  is  a  spiritual  neces 
sity  to  the  mathematician;  it  is  the  future  life  in 
the  terms  of  his  trade. 

And  so,  if  a  writer  would  keep  life  in  what  he 
writes,  he  must  not  think  of  art  at  all.  He  must  not 
have  any  of  the  artist's  special  preoccupations.  He 
must  go  at  his  writing  just  as  he  would  go  at  living. 
If  he  could  keep  self-consciousness  of  what  he  is  doing 
or  trying  to  do  entirely  out  of  his  work  he  would 
succeed  completely.  And  succeed  completely  he  never 
does.  How  nearly  he  can  come  to  complete  success 
we  know  from  some  of  Kipling,  O.  Henry,  most  of 


8      THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

Conrad,  one  book  of  Thomas  Hardy's — we  name  a 
few  modern  writers  just  for  the  sake  of  specific  illus 
tration  and  illustration  instantly  familiar  to  any 
reader  of  this  book. 

Mrs.  Wharton  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  a  pupil 
of  Henry  James,  and  the  resemblance  is  strong  in 
some  of  her  work  to  that  of  James,  but  she  is  not 
his  pupil.  It  is  simply  a  case  of  the  similar  products 
of  largely  similar  inheritances  and  environment.  Both 
these  writers  were  from  birth  well-to-do,  both  had 
exceptional  education  and  lived  and  moved  in  culti 
vated  surroundings.  Their  endowments  were  not 
unlike  though  more  disparate  than  their  circumstances. 
James  had  a  greater  gift  and  ruined  it  more  com 
pletely.  The  Portrait  of  a  Lady  is  the  everlasting  wit 
ness  of  what  he  might  have  done  by  the  fact  of  what, 
in  that  superb  novel,  he  did  do.  Ethan  Frome,  The 
House  of  Mirth  and  Summer  are  all  inferior  to  The 
Portrait  of  a  Lady  and  all  superior  to  James's  later 
work. 

If  any  one  tells  you  otherwise  it  is  because  he  is 
thinking  in  terms  of  art  and  not  in  terms  of  life. 
And  some  will  tell  you  otherwise,  for  the  world  never 
has  lacked  those  to  whom  art  was  more  than  life 
just  as  the  world  has  never  lacked  those  to  whom  a 
future  life  was  more  than  the  life  of  this  earth.  With 
these  we  have  no  quarrel;  we  can  but  respect  them; 
God  made  them  so.  It  takes  all  kinds  of  people,  we 
agree,  to  make  a  world;  if  that  is  so,  manifestly  it 
takes  all  kinds  of  views  to  get  the  true  view.  In  any 
triangle  the  sum  of  all  three  angles  is  equal  to 
two  right  angles.  If,  therefore,  one  of  the  angles 


EDITH  WHARTON  9 

of  the  triangle  is  a  right  angle,  the  sum  of  the  other 
two  will  equal  a  right  angle.  The  angle,  of  outlook 
which  sees  only  the  artistry  in  a  piece  of  literary  work 
added  to  the  angle  of  outlook  which  sees  only  the 
livingness  in  the  same  work  may  make  the  right  angle 
which  we  all  aspire  to  look  from. 

BOOKS  BY  EDITH  WHARTOJC 

The  Greater  Inclination,  1899. 

The  Touchstone,  1900. 

Crucial  Instances,  1901. 

The  Valley  of  Decision,   1902. 

Sanctuary,  1903. 

The  Descent  of  Man,  and  Other  Stories,  1904. 

Italian  Villas  and  Their  Gardens,  1904. 

Italian  Backgrounds,  1905. 

The  House  of  Mirth,  1905. 

Madame  de  Treymes,  1907. 

The  Fruit  of  the  Tree,  1907. 

The  Hermit  and  the  Wild  Woman,  1908. 

A  Motor-Flight  Through  France,  1908. 

Artemis  to  Action  and  Other  Verse,  1909. 

Tales  of  Men  and  Ghosts,  1910. 

The  Reef,  1912. 

The  Custom  of  the  Country,  1913. 

The  Book  of  the  Homeless,  1915. 

Fighting  France,  1915. 

Ethan  Frome. 

The  Decoration  of  Houses. 

The  Joy  of  Living. 


io    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

Xingu  and  Other  Stories. 

Summer. 

The  Marne. 

Published  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  New  York; 
Summer  and.  The  Marne  are  published,  by  D.  Applet  OH 
&  Company,  New  York. 


CHAPTER  II 

ALICE   BROWN 

FROM  New  Hampshire  Alice  Brown  responded, 
July  29,  1918,  to  a  request  for  something  from 
herself  about  herself  with  a  letter  as  follows: 

"I  have  been  too  busy  in  legitimate  ways — garden 
ing,  cooking,  cursing  the  Hun — to  write  you  a  human 
document.  But  these  are  some  of  the  dark  facts.  I 
was  born  in  Hampton  Falls,  New  Hampshire,  about 
six  miles  inland  from  the  sea,  near  enough  to  get  a 
tang  of  salt  and  a  'sea  turn'  of  walking — [a  word 
that  looks  like  'mist'  or  'twist'.]  The  country  there 
is  slightly  rolling,  with  hills  enough  to  give  nice  little 
dips  and  climbs  in  the  winding  roads,  and  the  farms 
are  fertile.  My  people  were  farmers.  We  lived,  not 
at  Hampton  Falls  village,  but  in  a  little  'neighbor 
hood'  on  the  road  to  Exeter,  and  at  Exeter  all  the 
shopping  was  done.  It  was  one  postoffice,  and  any 
neighbor  who  drove  over  brought  back  the  mail  for 
the  rest. 

"I  went  to  the  little  district  school  until  I  was  per 
haps  fourteen  and  then  went  to  the  'Robinson  Fe 
male  Seminary,'  Exeter,  walking  back  and  forth  every 
day  except  in  the  winter  months,  and  there  I  was 
graduated — after  which  I  taught  several  years,  in  the 
country  and  in  Boston,  hating  it  more  and  more  every 

ii 


12     THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

minute,  and  then  threw  over  my  certainty  to  write. 

"I  did  a  little  work  on  the  Christian  Register  and 
then  went  to  the  Youth's  Companion,  where,  for  years, 
I  ground  out  stuff  from  the  latest  books  and  maga 
zines. 

"And  that's  really  all !  I  own  a  farm  here  at  Hill, 
which  I  don't  carry  on — sell  the  grass  standing  and 
the  apples  on  the  trees.  I  love  gardens  and  houses. 
I  wish  I  could  go  round  planning  the  resurrection  of 
old  houses  and  pass  them  over  to  somebody  else  and 
plan  more. 

"And  that's  all!  Now  I  ask  you  if  any  newspaper 
gent,  even  with  a  genius  for  embroidery,  could  make 
anything  of  that?  'Story?  God  bless  you,  sir,  I've 
none  to  tell!' 

"Gloomily  yours, 

"ALICE  BROWN." 
[In  pencil] 

"I  thought  I  should  write  about  five  thousand  words, 
but  this  is  how  it  pans  out!" 

And  it  pans  out  extremely  well,  if  a  newspaper  gent 
with  no  genius  for  embroidery,  incapable,  indeed,  of 
knitting  a  single  sock  for  a  soldier,  may  express  his 
satisfaction.  For  a  woman  of  sixty  who  has  no 
story  of  her  own  to  tell  has  certainly  a  lot  of  stories 
to  tell  of  other  people.  Miss  Brown  has  told  them 
all.  A  very  respectable  list  of  writings  will  be  found 
at  the  close  of  this  chapter. 

New  England  stories  (Meadow-Grass),  English 
travels  (By  Oak  and  Thorn),  poems  (The  Road  to 
Castaly),  a  study  of  Stevenson  written  in  collabora 
tion,  stories  for  girls  (as  The  Secret  of  the  Clan),  a 


ALICE  BROWN  13 

play  that,  among  nearly  1,700  submitted,  won  a  $10,- 
ooo  prize  (Children  of  Earth}  and  a  number  of 
novels  of  which  The  Prisoner  is  the  most  notable,  are 
a  main  outline  of  her  contribution  to  American  liter 
ature. 

She  is  without  any  question  one  of  the  half  dozen 
best  short  story  writers  America  possesses  at  this 
time.  Her  short  stories  have  achieved  a  wider  fame 
for  her  than  anything  else,  and  quite  rightly.  As  a 
poet  she  does  pleasant  and  sometimes  interesting  work, 
but  it  is  impossible  to  say  more.  As  a  dramatist  she 
wrote  one  play — the  play  that  captured  Winthrop 
Ames's  prize — which  was  splendidly  imaginative  and 
even  rather  poetic,  but  as  undramatic  as  a  "book  play" 
can  be.  It  never  had  a  chance  of  popular  success. 
Does  some  one  say  that  is  nothing  against  it? 
It  is  everything  against  it.  The  play  or  the  book  that 
does  not  appeal  to  a  wide  audience  has  a  fatal  lack 
and  no  amount  of  "literary"  merit  can  make  up  for 
that  lack. 

As  a  novelist  Miss  Brown  can  be  absolutely  un 
readable.  If  you  don't  believe  that  try  to  go  through 
My  Love  and  I,  first  published  under  the  pen  name 
"Martin  Redfield."  It  is  Stevenson  with  the  Scotch 
left  out.  Again,  she  can  write  a  book  like  The  Pris 
oner,  which  is  as  fine  in  its  way  as  anything  John 
Galsworthy  ever  did.  In  its  way?  Nothing  deroga 
tory,  we  assure  you !  The  way  is  American,  not  Eng 
lish;  that's  all  (as  Miss  Brown  would  say). 

It  is  perhaps  unfortunate  that  in  a  book  dealing  with 
American  women  novelists  it  should  be  necessary  to 
confine  the  consideration  of  Alice  Brown  to  her  novels; 


i4    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

but  this  disadvantage  to  her  is  no  greater  than  the 
disadvantage  to  Edna  Ferber  or  one  or  two  others 
whose  best  work  is  not  in  the  novel  form.  Since  the 
restriction  does  Miss  Brown,  on  the  whole,  a  con 
siderable  injustice,  let  us  restrict  a  little  further  and 
consider  only  her  best  novel.  We  shall  then  be  doing 
as  much  as  we  can  to  redress  the  balance  in  her  favor 
and  perhaps  more  than  we  ought  to  do.  But  chivalry 
is  not  dead. 

The  Prisoner  is  the  story  of  a  relatively  young  man 
who  has  just  come  out  of  prison  and  whose  readjust 
ment  to  the  world  he  is  reentering  is  a  keenly  inter 
esting  subject.  The  very  first  thing  to  be  noted  is 
the  absolute  originality  and  freshness  of  Miss  Brown's 
conception  of  her  story.  This,  perhaps  innocently,  we 
believe  to  be  without  a  literary  parallel. 

Ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  novelists,  in  these 
days  probably  999  out  of  1,000,  and  of  women  nov 
elists  9,999  out  of  10,000,  would  see  the  released  man 
in  a  single  aspect.  The  victim  of  society,  of  course; 
prison  reform,  sociology,  Thomas  Mott  Osborneism, 
uplift,  the  cruelty  of  the  world  in  letting  a  man  out 
after  having  once  put  him  in  (for  it  is  much  more  of 
a  punishment  to  release  a  man  from  jail  than  to 
incarcerate  him),  cruelty,  wrong,  cruelty,  injustice, 
cruelty,  the  way  of  the  world,  cruelty . 

Now  the  basis  of  this  general  attitude  is  an  incur 
able  sentimentality,  and  Miss  Brown  is  not  senti 
mental  but  sanative,  made  so  by  a  gift  of  humor  and 
laughter.  She  is,  it  is  true,  rather  deeply  interested 
in  ideas  as  ideas,  and  in  The  Prisoner  she  has  packed 
a  few  more  than  can  be  found  in  any  American  novel 


ALICE  BROWN  15 

of  the  last  dozen  years.  The  root  idea  is  that  ex 
pressed  by  the  prisoner — or  ex-prisoner — himself.  As 
Jeff  says,  with  a  flash  of  insight  (prisoners  learn  to 
look  within),  the  real  difficulty  is  not  that  a  man  is 
in  prison,  but  that  he's  outside  the  law.  And  on  the 
last  page  of  the  book  the  same  idea  is  paraphrased, 
put  even  more  perfectly,  by  Miss  Brown,  who  says 
of  Lydia  that  she  knew  by  her  talk  with  Jeff  and 
reading  what  he  had  imperfectly  written  "that  he 
meant  to  be  eternally  free  through  fulfilling  the  in 
comprehensible  paradox  of  binding  himself  to  the 
law." 

This  will  not  appeal  to  persons  who  have  not  been 
taught  by  Gilbert  K.  Chesterton  the  art  of  lucid  think 
ing.  The  fact  that  a  man  is  in  prison  is  unimportant ; 
it  is  a  mere  symptom  or  consequence  of  the  terrible 
thing  which  is  the  matter  with  him.  For  his  pres 
ence  there  is  simply  evidence  that  he  put  himself,  or 
got  himself,  outside  the  law.  In  pursuit  of  money, 
or  a  woman,  or  what  not  sort  of  game  he  has  cut 
himself  off  from  the  community  of  mankind  and  it 
will  be  a  miracle  if  he  can  get  back  into  it.  The  mere 
fact  that  he  has  committed  a  crime  is  very  little  one 
way  or  the  other,  almost  meaningless  in  itself.  If 
he  is  "outside"  and  so  cut  off  in  mind  and  spirit  and 
imagination  from  all  his  fellows,  what  is  to  them  a 
crime  will  bear  to  him  no  immoral  aspect  whatever. 
For  what  is  a  crime?  Something  that  we  agree  must 
not  go  unpunished.  Something  that  "we"  agree.  But 
the  man  "outside"  is  not  one  of  us  any  longer  if  he 
ever  was. 

At  the  risk  of  seeming  to  digress  we  must  endeavor 


16    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

to  make  this  very  clear,  for  otherwise  The  Prisoner 
will  be,  in  its  real  import,  lost  on  the  reader.  Human 
nature  being  what  it  is  there  is  no  way  to  prevent  a 
man  getting  "outside"  if  the  bent  takes  him.  There 
are  many  ways  in  which  we  try  to  keep  every  one  in 
the  fellowship — for  society  is  essentially  a  spiritual 
alliance  and  with  a  creed  so  broad  that  we  make  laws 
simply  to  state  what  is  not  in  that  creed,  the  whole 
creed  itself  being  entirely  beyond  our  powers  of  ex 
pression.  But  there  is  no  sure  way  to  keep  men  from 
getting  "outside"  the  fellowship.  And  once  they  have 
got  outside  the  real  problem  is  to  get  them  back  in. 
They  can  get  back  in  only  voluntarily  and  of  their 
own  free  will,  and  only  by  binding  themselves  to  the 
law.  Law,  not  laws.  What  they  must  accept  is  the 
inexpressible  creed  of  fellowship  and  their  acceptance 
of  that  carries  with  it  an  acceptance  of  the  things 
barred  by  it,  the  things  we  make  laws  about. 

And  the  only  hope  of  getting  a  man  who  has  got 
"outside"  to  accept  the  creed  and  reenter  the  fellow 
ship  is  to  convince  him  that  only  by  so  doing  can  he 
achieve  freedom,  that  only  by  binding  himself  to  the 
unwritten  law  can  he  become  "eternally  free."  If  you 
can  make  him  see  that,  you  have  salvaged  him  for 
society.  As  the  surest  way  to  make  a  man  see  a  thing 
is  to  let  him  discover  it  for  himself  we  have  invented 
prisons.  Do  not  be  deceived  by  the  stupid  notion  that 
prisons  are  to  punish  men  or  even  to  protect  society 
from  their  evil  depredations.  Prisons  are  the  result 
of  a  deep,  very  sensible,  entirely  unshakeable  piece 
of  knowledge  which  we  collectively  possess,  namely, 
that  the  man  who  has  put  himself  beyond  the  pale 


ALICE  BROWN  17 

must  himself  bring  himself  within  it  again.  To  that 
end  we  enclose  him  in  four  symbolic  brick  walls.  We 
give  him  no  physical  or  bodily  escape.  And  so,  after 
a  time,  he  makes  a  mental  escape  and  finds  himself 
still  essentially  free,  though  physically  in  jaiH  So  at 
last  he  comes  to  understand  and  accept  the  paradox 
that  he  can  be  free  in  no  other  way — ever. 

The  idea  deserves  expanding,  but  the  reader  will 
probably  consider  that  we  have  intruded  unpardon- 
ably  with  it  in  this  chapter  anyway.  However,  we 
can  see  no  other  means  of  making  clear  the  philosophic 
basis  of  Miss  Brown's  fine  novel.  Of  its  other  fea 
tures  we  shall  not  even  bother  to  speak.  It  is  well 
written,  of  course;  it  offers  persons  and  situations  that 
are  both  metaphysical  and  melodramatic  and  there 
fore,  in  this  indissolubility  of  thought  and  feeling,  life 
like,  amazing,  comical,  thought-provoking — why  heap 
up  adjectives?  The  character  drawing  is  simply  su 
perb  and  a  better  executed  figure  than  Madame  Beattie 
cannot  be  found  in  the  whole  range  of  American  fic 
tion.  Miss  Amabel  is  hardly  inferior.  Weedon 
Moore,  Alston  Choate,  the  rigid  and  motionless  but 
perfectly  well  grandmother  in  bed,  Rhoda  Knox — 
there  is  no  gainsaying  the  fidelity  of  these  people  to 
observed  facts  and  existences.  If  Henry  James  had 
had  Madame  Beattie's  necklace  in  place  of  his  golden 
bowls  and  sacred  founts  his  art  would  have  been  ex 
pended  on  really  worthy  material,  but  he  could  not, 
nor  could  any  one,  have  done  more  with  it  than  Alice 
Brown  has  done. 

On  the  strength  of  this  one  story  Miss  Brown  must 
be  placed  very  high  on  the  roll  of  American  novelists 


i8     THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

at  least  as  high  as  we  place,  among  the  men,  Owen 
Wister,  by  reason  solely  of  that  incomparable  novel 
of  the  West,  The  Virginian. 

BOOKS  BY  ALICE  BROWN 

Fools  of  Nature. 
Meadow-Grass. 
By  Oak  and  Thorn. 
Life  of  Mercy  Otis  Warren. 
The  Road  to  Castaly. 
The  Day  of  His  Youth. 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson — A  Study   (with  Louise 
Imogen  Guiney). 
Tiverton  Tales. 
King's  End,  1901. 
Margaret  Warrener,  1901. 
The  Mannerings. 
High  Noon. 
Paradise. 

The  County  Road,  1906. 
The  Court  of  Love,  1906. 
Rose  McLeod,  1908. 
The  Story  of  Thyrza,  1909. 
Country  Neighbors,  1910. 
John  Winterbourne's  Family,  1910. 
The  One-Footed  Fairy,  1911. 
The  Secret  of  the  Clan,  1912. 
My  Love  and  I,  1912. 
Vanishing  Points,  1913. 
Robin  Hood's  Barn,  1913. 
Children  of  Earth,  1915. 


ALICE  BROWN  19 

Bromley  Neighborhood. 
The  Prisoner,  1916. 
The  Flying  Teuton,  1918. 

Published  by  The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York. 
Some  of  the  earlier  books  by  Houghton  Mifflin  Com 
pany,  Boston. 


CHAPTER  III 

ELLEN  GLASGOW 

ELLEN  GLASGOW'S  first  two  books  were  pro 
duced  before  she  was  twenty.  She  is  a  Vir 
ginian,  like  Mary  Johnston,  but  a  realist — bet 
ter,  a  disciple  of  naturalism — and  concerned  with 
social  and  personal  problems  of  the  last  thirty  years. 
A  dozen  books  stand  to  her  credit,  all  novels  except 
a  book  of  verse,  nearly  all  concerned  with  the  social 
reconstruction  in  the  South.  Banish  the  connotations 
of  the  word  "Reconstruction"  as  used  respecting  the 
South.  The  period  immediately  following  the  end  of 
the  civil  war  is  almost  the  sole  property  of  Thomas 
Dixon.  Miss  Glasgow's  province  for  a  number  of 
years  and  a  number  of  books  has  been  the  more 
gradual  and  more  fateful  making  over  of  the  South 
into  something  reasonably  homogeneous  with  the  rest 
of  the  United  States  than  the  leisured  feudalism  of  the 
'505  and  the  hopeless  wreck  of  the  '6os. 

She  is  a  novelist  of  manners,  but  of  changing  man 
ners;  of  cycles  and  transformations,  whether  in  the 
lives  of  individuals  or  the  life  of  a  region.  Unlike 
Miss  Johnston,  she  cannot  revive  the  past  for  its  own 
sake,  but  only  for  the  sake  of  the  present  and  the 
future.  She  is  an  evolutionist  who  has  not  read  Dar 
win  and  Herbert  Spencer  in  vain.  Her  writing  is 

20 


ELLEN  GLASGOW  21 

filled  with  a  serious  purpose,  the  purpose  to  put  life 
before  you  not  merely  as  it  is  but  as  she  thinks  you 
should  see  it.  She  does  not  preach  or  moralize,  being 
far  too  fine  an  artist  for  such  crudities.  It  is  enough 
to  have  given  you  the  facts  in  her  interpretation  of 
them.  She  is  quietly  confident  that  you  will  not  be 
able  to  get  away  from  them,  so  presented.  And  you 
hardly  ever  are! 

Miss  Glasgow  has  had  to  drive  so  hard  and  so 
strongly  and  so  much  alone ;  she  has  had  to  face  such 
a  vast  inertia  of  tradition  and  such  a  tenacity  of 
feeling,  that  the  struggle  has  narrowed  her.  She  hates 
sentimentality,  and  rightly.  It  has  been  the  terrible 
obstacle  she  has  had  to  confront.  Of  her  South  she 
once  said: 

"I  love  it;  I  was  brought  up  in  it,  but  all  my  life  I've 
had  to  struggle  against  the  South's  sentimentality, 
which  I  inherit.  We  shall  sooner  or  later  have  to 
tear  asunder  that  veil  of  sentimentality.  Our  people 
will  have  to  realize  that  a  statement  made  in  criticism 
of  the  South  is  not  an  act  of  disloyalty.  Please  say 
that  in  as  kind  a  way  as  possible,"  Miss  Glasgow 
added,  probably  with  some  compunction,  for,  as  she 
said  on  another  occasion,  when  asked  what  the  South 
erners  thought  about  her:  "I  have  no  idea.  They 
are  very  kind  to  me."  To  finish  her  words  about  the 
struggle  with  inherited  sentimentality:  "I  say  it  as  a 
Southerner,"  she  explained.  "We  must  cultivate 
within  us  truth  instead  of  sentimentality,  which  up  to 
now  has  been  our  darling  vice."  These  words  were 
uttered  in  New  York  in  the  fall  of  1912,  a  few  months 
before  the  publication  of  her  novel  Virginia,  the  title 


22    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

referring,  however,  not  to  her  State,  but  to  the  heroine 
of  the  book,  Virginia  Pendleton. 

You  can't  fight  sentimentality  with  tolerance  and  it 
is  Miss  Glasgow's  handicap  that  to  write  the  great 
books  she  has  written,  to  succeed  as  she  has  succeeded 
under  the  most  adverse  conditions  and  in  the  most 
adverse  environment,  she  has  had  to  contract  her  ho 
rizon,  even  to  shut  her  eyes  and  thrust  with  all  her 
might  ahead.  Surrounded  by  sentimentality  and  the 
tradition  of  a  past  whose  glorious  perfection  it  were 
treason  to  question,  she  has  not  been  able  always  to 
see  things  clearly  and  to  see  them  whole.  In  the  early 
part  of  1916  she  declared  that  contemporary  English 
fiction  was  superior  to  American  fiction,  that  Ameri 
cans  were  demanding  from  writers  and  politicians 
alike  an  "evasive  idealism"  and  a  "sham  optimism" 
and  "a  sugary  philosophy,  utterly  without  any  basis 
in  logic  or  human  experience."  There  was  some  more 
to  the  same  effect,  but  let  us  not  harrow  the  souls 
of  ourselves  who  rejoice  in  Ellen  Glasgow's  work  by 
recalling  any  more  of  it.  She  was  wrong,  dead 
wrong;  we  think  she  would  be  the  first  to  admit  it 
now,  but  whether  she  would  or  not  she  is  pretty  com 
pletely  to  be  excused  if  never  to  be  defended.  She 
was  best  answered  at  the  time  by  Booth  Tarkington, 
the  greatest  living  American  writer  of  fiction,  with 
the  allowable  exception  of  William  Dean  Howells. 
Said  Tarkington: 

"It  is  human  nature  to  desire  optimism  in  anybody 
— in  a  doctor,  or  a  friend,  or  a  farm  hand,  or  a  dog. 
Of  course,  the  public  desires  optimism  in  a  book,  and 
it  wants  not  the  'cheapest  sort  of  sham  optimism,' 


23 

but  the  finest  sort  of  genuine  optimism  that  it  can 
understand.  Naturally,  the  average  understanding 
isn't  the  highest  understanding;  nevertheless,  the 
writer  who  stoops  to  conquer  doesn't  conquer." 

Mr.  Tarkington  went  on  to  say: 

"Miss  Glasgow  is  sorry  that  there  are  so  many 
writers  willing  to  supply  the  demand  for  'sugary  phi 
losophy/  but  those  writers  are  not  only  willing  to  sup 
ply  ;  they  are  inspired  to  supply.  They  aren't  superior 
people  turning  the  trick  for  money,  as  Miss  Glasgow 
seems  to  think;  they  are  'giving  the  best  that  is  in 
them.'  They  take  their  art  solemnly." 

The  truest  word  on  the  subject  ever  uttered  and 
most  essential  to  be  reprinted  here.  It  is  not  so  much 
for  the  refutation  of  Miss  Glasgow  that  we  give  it. 
The  full  application  of  Mr.  Tarkington's  remarks  will 
be  seen  in  some  of  the  later  chapters  of  this  book. 

But  to  return  to  our  Southern  realist. 

Ellen  Anderson  Gholson  Glasgow  was  born  in 
Richmond,  Virginia,  April  22,  1874,  the  daughter  of 
Francis  Thomas  Glasgow  and  Anne  Jane  (Gholson) 
Glasgow.  Her  father  belonged  to  a  family  of  pro 
fessional  men — lawyers,  judges,  educators.  The  child 
was  of  delicate  health.  She  never  went  to  school — 
an  admission  she  makes  with  a  blush.  An  aunt  used 
to  tell  her  Scott's  stories  at  an  age  when  Mother 
Goose  is  the  customary  intellectual  fare.  At  thirteen 
she  read  and  enjoyed  Robert  Browning.  He  is  still 
her  favorite  poet,  though  Swinburne  has  a  great  place 
in  her  affections.  Quite  unaccountably  Miss  Glasgow 
showed  a  taste  for  scientific  subjects.  At  eighteen  she 
began  "a  systematic  study  of  political  economy  and 


24    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

socialism."  Her  love  for  a  story  remained  strong. 
The  home  was  a  strict  Southern  home,  the  women  in  it 
were  "sheltered."  The  young  woman  would  shut  her 
self  up  in  her  room  every  day  and  later  join  the 
family  for  such  diversions  as  they  indulged  in. 
Finally  she  went  to  her  father  and  said: 

"Father,  I  have  written  a  book." 

Isaac  F.  Marcosson  says  that  Father  was  dumb 
founded,  and  well  he  might  have  been.  The  novel 
was  published  anonymously  and  was  generally  sup 
posed  to  be  the  work  of  a  man  of  training  and  ex 
perience.  It  was  The  Descendant,  and  it  has  been 
characterized  as  "a  rather  morbid  exposition  of  the 
development  and  life  of  an  intellectual  hybrid,  the  off 
spring  of  a  low  woman  and  a  highly  intellectual  man." 

The  first  book  in  which  Miss  Glasgow  established 
her  right  to  serious  consideration  as  an  American  nov 
elist — as  a  novelist  picturing  American  life — was  The 
Voice  of  the  People,  published  in  1900.  She  has  re 
ferred  in  after  years  to  The  Descendant  as  "a  mere 
schoolgirl  effort,"  although  it  was  not  received  as 
such,  not  by  a  long  shot !  But  she  could  not  so  char 
acterize  The  Voice  of  the  People,  nor  could  any  one 
else.  It  is  a  competent  picture  of  the  Virginia  of  the 
'8os  with  its  class  distinctions  and  its  political  ma 
neuvering,  framing  a  specific  and  dramatic  story.  The 
novel  exhibits  a  considerable  knowledge  of  political 
machinery  and  a  characteristic  tale  relates  how  Miss 
Glasgow  got  some  of  the  necessary  "atmosphere."  In 
1897  she  drove  over  twenty  miles  in  the  hottest  August 
weather  in  order  to  sit  through  two  days  of  a  Demo 
cratic  State  convention.  An  old  family  friend,  a 


ELLEN  GLASGOW  25 

delegate  to  the  convention,  smuggled  Miss  Glasgow 
and  her  sister  on  to  the  stage  of  the  opera  house  in 
which  the  sessions  were  held.  They  were  the  only 
women  in  the  building  and  the  ordeal  of  listening  to 
two  days  of  Southern  oratory  must  have  been  as  se 
vere  as  the  ordeal  of  sitting,  obscurely  and  uncom 
fortably,  in  a  sun-baked  theater. 

It  is  also  said  of  Miss  Glasgow  that  she  remarked 
one  day  to  a  friend — Mr.  Marcosson,  if  we  are  not 
mistaken :  "I  am  going  to  write  a  novel  of  New  York 
life." 

"But  why  New  York  life  when  you  know  Virginia 
and  the  South  so  well?" 

"For  the  simple  reason  that  art  has  no  locality.  It 
is  universal.  I  do  not  believe  that  any  writer  should 
be  confined  to  any  particular  locality." 

A  reply  which  throws  light  on  Miss  Glasgow's 
earnestness  and  seriousness  of  purpose.  But  she  was, 
while  entirely  right  in  what  she  said,  not  answering 
the  question.  Art  has  no  locality,  but  the  artist  has 
necessarily  only  a  few  localities — those  he  knows 
tolerably  well.  Miss  Glasgow's  pictures  of  New  York 
life  never  carry  the  conviction  that  her  Virginia  set 
tings  do. 

Her  own  Virginia  setting  is  a  very  lovely  one.  Num 
ber  One  West  Main  Street,  Richmond,  is  a  square 
old  white  house,  "hemmed  in  by  trees  that  cast  shade 
over  the  soldiers  of  the  Confederacy."  Behind  it  is  a 
garden  in  which  walks  and  composes  a  beautiful  woman 
with  red-gold  hair,  the  real  Titian  shade  or  simply 
red-brown,  as  you  may  decide.  It  is  wavy  and  has 
gold  and  copper  gleams.  "Once  more  you  get  the 


26    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

touch  of  Jane  Austen,"  explains  Mr.  Marcosson.  He 
tells  us  that  Miss  Glasgow  writes  every  morning  and 
always  behind  a  locked  door;  "a  door  that  is  not  locked 
has  always  given  her  a  hint  of  possible  intrusion.  The 
only  animate  thing  that  has  ever  shared  the  com 
radeship  of  her  work  is  her  dog,  Joy.  She  writes 
rapidly  and  in  a  large,  masculine  hand." 

Rapidly,  perhaps,  but  not  finally.  Nearly  every  bit 
of  Virginia  and  Life  and  Gabriella  was  rewritten  at 
least  three  times,  some  parts  more;  and  one  chapter 
was  rewritten  thirteen  times.  It  sounds  incredible, 
but  Miss  Glasgow  says  so  herself.  She  used  to  write 
with  a  pen,  but  now  does  her  first  draft  in  pencil  and 
revises  after  it  has  been  typewritten. 

And  always  novels.  "I  cannot  write  short  stories," 
Miss  Glasgow  explains.  "They  bore  me  excruciat 
ingly.  The  whole  technique  of  the  short  story  and 
the  novel  is  different.  All  the  best  of  the  short  stories 
must  be  painfully  condensed  with  slight  regard  for 
the  evolutionary  causes  bringing  about  this  or  that 
effect.  Everything  that  I  see,  I  see  in  the  form  of 
a  novel — as  a  large  canvas.  I  want  to  trace  the  process 
of  cause  and  effect;  and  that  is  why  both  Virginia  and 
Gabriella  were  a  joy  in  the  writing.  Those  books  do 
not  deal  with  problems.  I  do  not  ever  let  a  problem 
get  into  my  novels — there  is  none,  except,  of  course, 
as  some  problem  of  an  individual  life  may  present 
itself  to  the  character.  I  am  not  concerned  with  any 
propaganda.  A  book  should  never  serve  any  purpose 
but  the  telling  of  life  as  it  is — being  faithfully 
realistic. 

"And  realism  is  only  the  truth  of  life  told,  and  is 


ELLEN  GLASGOW  27 

the  writer's  true  business.  Hawthorne  was  strongly 
realistic.  He  did  not  try  to  be  pleasing  or  pleasant. 
He  wrote  things  as  he  saw  them. 

"I  must  live  with  a  character  a  long  time.  Then 
the  desire  to  write  comes  and  I  begin  after  that  to 
shape  the  background,  and  the  details  of  plot  weave 
into  their  proper  places.  I  never  force  myself  to  begin 
a  piece  of  work  nor  force  myself  to  keep  at  it,  when 
the  something  within  stops.  And  I  never  get  an  idea 
by  looking  for  one.  They  just  come,  always  unex 
pectedly  and  always  at  the  most  inopportune  times  and 
places — at  a  reception,  on  the  train,  on  the  street." 

When  Miss  Glasgow  says  that  she  does  not  let  a 
problem  get  into  her  novels,  she  means  that  she  does 
not  put  it  there,  or  consciously  put  it  there.  She  selects 
her  people,  who  have  their  individual  problems  as  she 
concedes,  and  brings  them  into  relation  with  each 
other  and  from  that  relation  a  problem  may  arise, 
probably  does.  But  that  is  a  natural  and  artistic 
procedure,  the  perfect  antithesis  of  the  propagandist's 
methods.  Once  to  Montrose  J.  Moses  Miss  Glasgow 
talked  rather  freely  about  novel  writing  and  her  liter 
ary  ideals. 

"There  are  three  things  a  novelist  has  to  do  to  prove 
himself,"  she  declared.  "First,  he  must  show  an 
ability  to  create  personalities ;  second,  he  must  exhibit 
a  sincerity  of  style;  and  third,  he  must  evince  the 
capacity  for  an  intelligent  criticism  of  life.  Without 
these  he  is  not  worth  very  much  in  a  serious,  big 
way.  To  contribute  to  the  knowledge  and  under 
standing  of  life — that  should  be  his  motive  in  writ 
ing,  not  primarily  to  create  a  pleasant  impression. 


28    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

"There  have  been  several  stages  in  our  growth  since 
the  special  type  of  fiction  was  evolved.  There  was 
the  sentimentality  of  Richardson;  then  came  my  fa 
vorite,  Fielding,  our  first  realist;  and  finally  arrived 
the  critical  period  with  its  early  representative  in  Jane 
Austen  and  more  recent  upholder  in  Meredith.  We 
had  to  pass  through  stages  far  from  real  life  before 
we  reached  the  time  of  direct  dealing  with  life,  of 
real  criticism  of  life.  Take  such  men  as  Wells  and 
Galsworthy — and  maybe  Arnold  Bennett; — are  they 
not  trying  to  see  life  through  and  through?  I  do  not 
believe  in  the  realism  that  merely  depicts  for  the  pic 
ture.  Realism  of  the  kind  I  mean  not  only  depicts, 
but  interprets  as  well." 

"How  about  Fielding,  your  favorite?"  asked  Mr. 
Moses. 

"Oh,  he  had  his  faults,  but  they  were  honest  ones." 
Mr.  Moses  remarked  Miss  Glasgow's  enthusiasm  as 
she  talked.  "He  was  the  first  to  teach  us  that  life — 
and  ordinary  life,  too — has  poetry  in  it.  There  are 
some  of  our  writers  with  a  social  conscience  who  use 
narrative  as  a  mere  vehicle  for  philosophy.  It  is  al 
ways  well  to  have  a  big  central  idea  to  hold  the  build 
ing  together,  but  realism — though  some  novelists 
would  separate  it — cannot  be  practiced  apart  from 
vision.  The  novelist  must  have  a  perspective  in  life. 

"When  I  first  began  writing  I  steeped  myself  in 
economics,  in  sociology — and  later  in  German  mysti 
cism.  But  one  learns  only  that  he  may  unlearn,  if 
necessary.  In  doing  Virginia  I  was  obliged  to  revisit 
certain  localities  to  refresh  my  memory  of  things. 


ELLEN  GLASGOW  29 

But  I  could  not  write  of  them  immediately;  the  im 
pressions  had  to  filter  through  my  imagination. 

"A  man  who  writes  for  his  age  seldom  writes  for 
any  other.  And  that  is  why  I  do  not  believe  in  being 
consciously  local.  Mr.  Howells,  as  our  greatest 
realist,  made  us  see  the  poetry  of  the  life  he  knew 
best.  While  I've  never  consciously  been  influenced 
by  any  school,  I  have  felt  what  he  has  done  for  the 
novel.  At  one  time  I  knew  my  Balzac,  my  Flaubert, 
my  Guy  de  Maupassant,  by  heart.  And  of  course  I 
read  the  Russians,  who,  I  think,  are  the  greatest  of 
all  novelists.  But  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  I  have  worked 
my  own  method  out  for  myself." 

Because  she  believes  so  much  in  the  novel  form, 
Miss  Glasgow  has  never  written  a  play  nor  ever  con 
sented  to  the  dramatization  of  any  of  her  books.  "I 
like  the  flow  of  the  novel,"  she  says.  "It  is  the  best 
expression  of  the  people  and  the  times.  The  drama 
cannot  comprehend  all  of  life  as  it  is  to-day.  A 
larger  canvas  is  needed  to  picture  the  greater  com 
plexity.  The  greatest  drama  was  written  in  times  when 
life  was  far  more  simple  than  it  is  now.  The  novel 
alone  can  take  in  its  flow  all  of  this  complexity." 

Add  to  Miss  Glasgow's  literary  tastes  Maeterlinck, 
Spinoza,  Ruskin  and  the  Bible.  She  was  for  years 
"tremendously  interested"  (Mr.  Marcosson's  words) 
in  the  literature  of  the  Orient.  There  is  a  little  brass 
Buddha  on  her  desk  in  the  house  in  Richmond.  The 
fatalistic  touch,  or  more  accurately,  the  sense  of  the 
law  of  recompense  and  the  payments  life  is  always 
exacting,  pervades  her  stories.  Certain  ideas  are  for 
her  garbed  in  definite  phrases.  Take,  for  example, 


30    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

the  titles  of  two  of  her  books,  The  Wheel  of  Life 
(1906)  and  The  Ancient  Law  (1908).  They  merely 
repeat  the  titles  of  the  final  chapter  and  the  final  book, 
respectively,  in  her  earlier  novel,  The  Deliverance. 

For  some  years  Miss  Glasgow  has  divided  her  time 
between  her  Richmond  home  and  a  pleasant  New 
York  apartment  overlooking  Central  Park,  an  apart 
ment  which  somehow,  with  its  books,  its  portrait  of 
Miss  Glasgow  empaneled,  its  white  pillars  at  the 
entrance  to  the  reception  room,  its  books,  books, 
books  in  mahogany  cases,  preserves  a  good  deal  of  the 
atmosphere  of  a  Southern  home.  Miss  Glasgow 
comes  to  New  York  "for  the  change,"  and  also  to 
get  the  life  of  New  York  which  has  alternated  with 
the  life  of  Virginia  in  her  later  books. 

Virginia,  as  her  most  popular  book  and  the  cause 
of  a  considerable  controversy  on  its  appearance  in 
1913,  must  receive  some  attention  in  this  sketch.  It 
is  the  first  book  of  a  trilogy — provided  Miss  Glasgow 
writes  the  third!  Life  and  Gabriella  was  the  second 
book  of  the  uncompleted  trilogy.  Let  us  see  what 
Miss  Glasgow  has  had  to  say  about  these  books.  We 
assume  that  the  reader  knows  her  to  have  been  an 
ardent  suffragist  and  advocate  of  economic  independ 
ence  for  her  sex. 

"Success  for  a  woman"  (Miss  Glasgow  is  speaking) 
"must  be  about  the  same  as  for  a  man.  Success  for 
a  woman  means  a  harmonious  adjustment  to  life. 
Material  success  is  not  success  if  it  does  not  also 
bring  happiness. 

"The  great  thing  in  life  is  the  development  of 
character  to  a  point  where  one  may  mold  his  destiny. 


ELLEN  GLASGOW  31 

One  must  use  the  circumstances  of  life  rather  than 
be  used  by  them.  The  greatest  success  for  a  woman 
is  to  be  the  captain  of  her  own  soul. 

"Women  have  always  been  in  revolt."  (This  in 
answer  to  a  question  as  to  whether  Life  and  Gabriella 
was  intended  to  express  the  modern  revolt  of  wom 
en.)  "It  is  only  now  that  the  revolt  is  strong  enough  to 
break  through  the  crust.  No  matter  what  her  condi 
tion  or  class,  woman  does  not  now  have  to  marry  for 
support,  because  she  is  ashamed  to  be  unmarried,  or 
because  she  is  hounded  to  it  by  her  relatives.  She 
dare  remain  single. 

"I  believe  that  marriage  should  be  made  more  dif 
ficult  and  divorce  easier.  I  also  believe  that  divorce 
laws  should  be  made  more  uniform.  Laws  made  for 
traffic  and  commercial  ends  may  need  to  be  changed 
when  a  certain  arbitrary  boundary  is  passed,  but  laws 
made  for  human  nature  should  be  everywhere  the 
same,  for  the  man  who  lives  in  California  and  the 
one  in  Maine  are — just  men. 

"The  mistake  women,  wives,  have  always  made  is 
that  they  have  concentrated  too  intensely  on  emotion. 
They  have  made  emotion  the  only  thing  in  the  world. 
Husband  and  wife  must  be  mentally  companionable 
if  their  happiness  is  to  last  through  the  years. 

"I  find  one  of  the  most  fascinating  dramas  in  all 
the  facets  of  life  to  be  the  great  epic  of  changing  con 
ditions  and  the  adjustment  of  individuals  to  the  new 
order.  Naturally  the  battle  is  always  sharpest  and 
most  dramatic  in  those  places  where  the  older  system 
has  been  most  firmly  intrenched.  And  that  is  why 
the  coming  of  the  new  order  in  the  South  has  been 


32    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

attended  by  so  many  dramatic  stories.  When  I  began 
Virginia  I  had  in  mind  three  books  dealing  with  the 
adjustment  of  human  lives  to  changing  conditions. 

"In  Virginia  I  wanted  to  do  the  biography  of  a 
woman,  representative  of  the  old  system  of  chivalry 
and  showing  her  relation  to  that  system  and  the 
changing  order.  Virginia's  education,  like  that  of 
every  well-bred  Southern  woman  of  her  day,  was  de 
signed  to  paralyze  her  reasoning  faculties  and  to  elim 
inate  all  danger  of  mental  unsettling.  Virginia  was 
the  passive  and  helpless  victim  of  the  ideal  of  feminine 
self -sacrifice.  The  circumstances  of  her  life  first 
molded  and  then  dominated  her. 

"Gabriella  was  the  product  of  the  same  school,  but 
instead  of  being  used  by  circumstances,  she  used  them 
to  create  her  own  destiny.  The  two  books  are  exact 
converses.  Where  Virginia  is  passive,  Gabriella  is 
active. 

"Virginia  desired  happiness,  but  did  not  expect  it, 
much  less  fight  for  it,  and  consequently  in  a  system 
where  self-sacrifice  was  the  ideal  of  womanhood  she 
became  submerged  by  circumstances  just  as  have  been 
so  many  other  women  of  her  type.  Gabriella,  on  the 
other  hand,  desired  happiness  and  insisted  on  hap 
piness.  Gabriella  had  the  courage  of  action  and 
through  molding  circumstances  wrested  from  life  her 
happiness  and  success." 

"And  the  third  book?"  The  reader  must  not  think 
from  the  condensed  and  coalesced  extracts  of  what 
Miss  Glasgow  has  said  about  her  work  that  she  talks 
readily.  She  does  not.  You  have,  sometimes,  rather 
to  drag  it  out  of  her — that  is,  what  you  want  concern- 


ELLEN  GLASGOW  33 

ing  her  own  work.  On  literature  generally  she  talks 
with  freedom,  wisdom  and  point. 

"The  third  book  may  never  be  written,"  Miss  Glas 
gow  answered.  "If  it  should  be,  it  will  deal  with  a 
woman  who  faces  her  world  with  the  weapons  of  in 
direct  influence  or  subtlety." 

Gabriella's  philosophy  was  summed  up  in  her 
words:  "I  want  to  be  happy.  I  have  a  right  to  be 
happy,  and  it  depends  on  myself.  No  life  is  so  hard 
that  you  can't  make  it  easier  by  the  way  you  take 
it."  In  the  face  of  disaster  which  would  have  broken 
the  hearts  of  many  women,  she  won  her  success,  her 
happiness,  from  the  cruelties  of  life. 

"I  believe,"  Miss  Glasgow  once  said,  "that  a  per 
son  gets  out  of  life  just  what  he  puts  into  it — or 
rather  he  puts  in  more  than  he  gets  out,  I  suppose; 
for  he  is  always  working  for  something  unattainable ; 
always  groping  vaguely  with  his  spirit  to  find  the 
hidden  things.  Gabriella,  as  you  may  remember,  was 
'obliged  to  believe  in  something  or  die.' ' 

We  have  heard  Miss  Glasgow  tell  how  she  lives 
with  a  character.  She  is,  or  was,  living  with  the 
character  which  will  become  the  central  figure  in  the 
third  novel  of  her  probable  trilogy.  "The  time  is 
not  ripe  to  write,"  she  said,  when  last  speaking  about 
this  possible  book.  "As  soon  as  I  begin  to  speak  of 
the  character  it  all  leaves  me.  For  some  years  I  wrote 
one  book  every  two  years.  Three  years  elapsed  be 
tween  Virginia  and  Life  and  Gabriella.  I  have  no 
idea  when  the  next  will  be  finished.  I  cannot  under 
stand  how  any  one  can  finish  and  publish  two  books 
a  year  regularly.  It  seems  that  one  ought  to  give 


34    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

more  of  one's  self  to  a  book  than  that.  For  my 
own  part,  I  should  like  to  write  each  novel  and  keep 
it  ten  years  before  I  publish  it.  But  my  friends  tell 
me,  'Of  course,  that  is  impossible.  You  change  so 
much  in  ten  years — all  would  be  different.  You 
would  be  obliged  to  write  it  all  over  again.'  I  sup 
pose  that  is  true." 

Very  true.  But  the  dissatisfaction  with  the  ten- 
year-old  novel  would  be  the  dissatisfaction  of  the 
conscientious  artist,  Ellen  Glasgow.  It  would  not  be 
the  dissatisfaction  of  the  novel  reader.  At  least,  re 
reading  The  Deliverance  these  fourteen  years  after 
its  first  publication,  your  admiration  for  Miss  Glas 
gow's  finished  art,  her  sense  of  drama,  her  penetration 
of  the  human  heart,  her  portraitive  skill,  her  fine  sense 
of  the  retributive  conscience  implanted  in  the  human 
breast — all  these  blended  perceptions  and  satisfactions 
are  as  lively  as  they  were  when  the  book  first  came 
out  Really  the  only  difference  is  that  now  you  look 
confidently  for  them  and  are,  though  no  less  rejoiced 
and  grateful,  not  in  the  least  surprised  at  the  finding. 

Miss  Glasgow's  peculiar  brilliance  has  never  re 
ceived  a  more  honest  or  better  tribute  than  in  what 
Gene  Stratton-Porter  had  to  say  after  reading 
Virginia.  It  is  worth  quoting  in  full: 

"The  writings  of  Miss  Ellen  Glasgow  have  always 
possessed  a  unique  and  special  charm  for  me  that  has 
carried  me  from  one  book  to  another  for  the  pleas 
ure  derived  from  reading,  with  no  special  effort  on 
my  part  to  learn  just  why  I  enjoyed  them.  Last 
summer  a  man  quoted  in  my  presence  a  line  of  Miss 
Glasgow's,  something  like  this:  'Not  being  able  to 


ELLEN  GLASGOW  35 

give  her  the  finer  gift  of  the  spirit,  he  loaded  her 
with  jewels.' 

"My  dictionary  defines  an  epigram,  'A  bright  or 
witty  thought  tersely  and  sharply  expressed,  often 
ending  satirically.'  A  saying  like  this  almost  reaches 
that  level.  At  any  rate,  it  stuck  in  my  mind,  and 
when  a  friend  recently  sent  me  a  copy  of  Miss  Glas 
gow's  latest  book,  I  began  reading  it  with  the  thought 
in  mind  that  I  would  watch  and  see  if  she  could 
say  other  things  of  like  quality.  My  patience!  She 
rolls  them  unendingly.  Before  I  had  read  twenty 
pages  I  realized  just  where  lay  the  charm  that  had 
always  held  me.  It  was  not  in  plot,  nor  in  char 
acter  drawing,  not  in  construction;  it  was  in  the 
woman  expressing  her  own  individuality  with  her  pen. 
What  a  gift  of  expression  she  has!  I  know  of  no 
other  woman  and  very  few  men  who  can  equal  her 
on  this  one  point. 

"Chesterton  does  the  same  thing,  with  a  champagne 
sparkle  and  bubble,  but  I  would  hesitate  to  say  that 
even  he  surpasses  her,  for  while  he  is  bubbling  and 
sparkling  on  the  surface,  charming,  alluring,  holding 
one,  she  is  down  among  the  fibers  of  the  heart,  her 
bright  brain  and  keen  wit  cutting  right  and  left  with 
the  precision  of  a  skilled  surgeon.  Not  so  witty,  but 
fully  as  wise. 

"You  have  only  to  read  Virginia  to  convince  your 
self. 

"  'Having  married,  they  immediately  proceeded,  as 
if  by  mutual  consent,  to  make  the  worst  of  it.' 

"  'Having  lived  through  the  brief  illumination  of 


36    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

romance,  she  had  come  at  last  into  that  steady  glow 
which  encompasses  the  commonplace.' 

"  To  demand  that  a  pretty  woman  should  possess 
the  mental  responsibility  of  a  human  being  would 
have  seemed  an  affront  to  his  inherited  ideas  of  gal 
lantry/ 

"  'If  the  texture  of  his  soul  was  not  finely  wrought, 
the  proportions  of  it  were  heroic.' 

"  'From  the  day  of  his  marriage  he  had  never  been 
able  to  deny  her  anything  she  had  set  her  heart  upon — 
not  even  the  privilege  of  working  herself  to  death  for 
his  sake  when  the  opportunity  offered.' 

"  'You  know  how  Abby  is  about  men.'  'Yes,  I 
know,  and  it's  just  the  way  men  are  about  Abby.' 

"  'How  on  earth  could  she  go  out  sewing  by  the 
day  if  she  didn't  have  her  religious  convictions?' 

"  'Anybody  who  has  mixed  with  beggars  oughtn't 
to  turn  up  his  nose  at  a  respectable  bank.'  'But  he 
says  that  it's  because  the  bank  is  so  respectable  that 
he  doesn't  think  he  could  stand  it.' 

"  'She  was  as  respectable  as  the  early  '8os  and  the 
21,000  inhabitants  of  Dinwiddie  permitted  a  woman 
to  be.' 

"These  lines  are  offered  as  a  taste  of  her  quality, 
and  they  roll  from  her  pen  in  every  paragraph." 

In  accordance  with  the  general  method  of  this 
book  we  have  thought  it  best  to  put  Ellen  Glasgow, 
certainly  a  genius,  certainly  one  of  the  greatest  living 
American  novelists,  perhaps  one  of  the  greatest  since 
there  has  been  an  American  literature — we  have 
thought  it  best  to  put  her,  we  say,  before  the  reader 
chiefly  in  her  own  words  and  in  her  aspect  to  others, 


ELLEN  GLASGOW  37 

just  as  she  would  herself  let  a  character  in  one  of 
her  books  reveal  himself  by  his  speeches  and  his  ac 
tions  and  stand  before  you  as  the  other  characters 
sized  him  up.  She  would  not  tell  you  what  sort  of 
man  he  was  and  require  you  to  swallow  her  account 
of  him;  she  would  set  him  before  you,  talking  and 
going  about;  she  would  give  you  the  impression  he 
made  on  those  about  him,  and  let  you  judge  him  for 
yourself — the  only  right  way.  We  have  only  one 
thing  more  which  we  want  to  point  out  at  the  close, 
Miss  Glasgow's  insight  into  the  mind  and  conscience 
of  her  people.  It  is  best  illustrated,  and  we  give  the 
close  of  a  chapter  in  The  Deliverance — after  all,  is  not 
this  wonderful  story  the  finest  of  Miss  Glasgow's 
novels,  we  wonder?  Christopher  Blake,  the  illiterate 
heir  of  a  great  name,  the  cherisher  of  an  undying  hate, 
has  succeeded  in  ruining  or  hastening  the  ruin  of  Will 
Fletcher,  grandson  of  the  man  who  stole  the  Blake 
plantation.  It  is  Blake's  revenge.  He  can  reach  old 
Fletcher  through  the  boy  and  he  has  done  it.  He,  a 
Blake,  living  in  a  wretched  shack,  while  the  erstwhile 
negro  overseer  dwells  at  Blake  Hall ! 

"Before  him  were  his  knotted  and  blistered  hands, 
his  long  limbs  outstretched  in  their  coarse  clothes,  but 
in  the  vision  beyond  the  little  spring  he  walked  proudly 
with  his  rightful  heritage  upon  him — a  Blake  by  force 
of  blood  and  circumstance.  The  world  lay  before 
him — bright,  alluring,  a  thing  of  enchanting  promise, 
and  it  was  as  if  he  looked  for  the  first  time  upon 
the  possibilities  contained  in  this  life  upon  the  earth. 
For  an  instant  the  glow  lasted — the  beauty  dwelt  upon 
the  vision,  and  he  beheld,  clear  and  radiant,  the  hap- 


38    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

piness  which  might  have  been  his  own;  then  it  grew 
dark  again,  and  he  faced  the  brutal  truth  in  all  its 
nakedness :  he  knew  himself  for  what  he  was — a  man 
debased  by  ignorance  and  passion  to  the  level  of  the 
beasts.  He  had  sold  his  birthright  for  a  requital, 
which  had  sickened  him  even  in  the  moment  of  ful 
fillment. 

"To  do  him  justice,  now  that  the  time  had  come  for 
an  acknowledgment,  he  felt  no  temptation  to  evade 
the  judgment  of  his  own  mind,  nor  to  cheat  himself 
with  the  belief  that  the  boy  was  marked  for  ruin 
before  he  saw  him — that  Will  had  worked  out,  in 
vicious  weakness,  his  own  end.  It  was  not  the  weak 
ness,  after  all,  that  he  had  played  upon — it  was  rather 
the  excitable  passion  and  the  whimpering  fears  of 
the  hereditary  drunkard.  He  remembered  now  the 
long  days  that  he  had  given  to  his  revenge,  the  nights 
when  he  had  tossed  sleepless  while  he  planned  a  widen 
ing  of  the  breach  with  Fletcher.  That,  at  least,  was 
his  work,  and  his  alone — the  bitter  hatred,  more  cruel 
than  death,  with  which  the  two  now  stood  apart  and 
snarled.  It  was  a  human  life  that  he  had  taken  in 
his  hand — he  saw  that  now  in  his  first  moment  of 
awakening — a  life  that  he  had  destroyed  as  deliberately 
as  if  he  had  struck  it  dead  before  him.  Day  by 
day,  step  by  step,  silent,  unswerving,  devilish,  he  had 
kept  about  his  purpose,  and  now  at  the  last  he  had 
only  to  sit  still  and  watch  his  triumph. 

"With  a  sob,  he  bowed  his  head  in  his  clasped 
hands,  and  so  shut  out  the  light." 

Powerful?  Yes,  the  passage  shows  an  unlimited 
mastery  of  the  novelist's  real  material,  the  human 


ELLEN  GLASGOW  39 

soul.  The  Deliverance  is  a  story  of  revenge  with 
few  equals  and,  that  we  can  recall,  no  superiors;  but 
it  goes  far  beyond  that,  because  it  shows  also  the  re 
tributive  and  regenerative  forces  at  work  in  Christo 
pher  Blake  and  their  final  effect  upon  him.  The  hour 
in  which  he  surrenders  himself  to  justice  as  Fletcher's 
murderer,  while  the  dead  man's  grandchild  flees,  is 
the  outward  and  visible  sign  of  an  inward  and  spirit 
ual  reformation,  a  reformation  to  come  but  to  be  pre 
ceded  by  an  atonement.  Wonderful  among  heroines 
is  Maria  Fletcher;  wonderful,  infinitely  pathetic, 
matchlessly  moving,  is  the  blind  grandmother  sitting 
stiff  and  straight  in  her  Elizabethan  chair,  directing 
the  hundreds  of  slaves  who  are  slaves  no  longer,  dis 
coursing  upon  the  duties  of  the  children  who  inherit 
a  splendid  name,  recalling  with  tenderness  and  spirit 
and  racial  pride  the  great  people  of  her  youth,  giving 
orders  that  are  never  executed,  eating  her  bit  of  chicken 
and  sipping  her  port,  blind — blind — successfully  de 
ceived,  successfully  kept  alive  and  contented  and  in  a 
sort  of  way  happy  these  twenty  years  since  the  slave 
Phyllis  "  'got  some  ridiculous  idea  about  freedom  in 
her  head,  and  ran  away  with  the  Yankee  soldiers 
before  we  whipped  them.' ' 

A  magnificent  portrait,  by  an  artist  of  whom  Ameri 
ca  can  never  be  anything  but  proud. 

BOOKS  BY  ELLEN  GLASGOW 

The  Descendant,  1897. 

Phases  of  an  Inferior  Planet,  1898. 

The  Voice  of  the  People,  1900. 


40     THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

The  Freeman  and  Other  Poems,  1902. 

The  Battleground,  1902. 

The  Deliverance,  1904. 

The  Wheel  of  Life,  1906. 

The  Ancient  Law,  1908. 

The  Romance  of  a  Plain  Man,  1909. 

The  Miller  of  Old  Church,  1911. 

Virginia,  1913. 

Life  and  Gabriella,  1916. 

The  Builders,  1919. 

Miss  Glasgow's  first  two  books  were  brought  out 
by  Harper  &  Brothers,  New  York;  all  the  rest  are 
published  by  Doubleday,  Page  &  Company,  New 
York. 


CHAPTER  IV 

GERTRUDE  ATHERTON 

GERTRUDE  ATHERTON  has  been  the  sub 
ject  of  more  controversy  than  any  other  living 
American  novelist.     It  is  one  of  the  best  evi 
dences  of   her   importance.     England,   we  are   told, 
regards  her  as  the  greatest  living  novelist  of  America. 
Many  Americans  so  rate  her.     Abroad,  the  opinion 
of  her  work  approaches  something  like  unanimity  and 
it   is   very   high.      At   home   unanimity   is  nowhere. 
Prophets  are  not  the  only  ones  who  occasionally  suf 
fer  a  lack  of  honor  in  their  own  countries. 

A  good  deal  of  it  comes  out  of  Mrs.  Atherton's 
long-standing  and  vigorous  assault  on  the  literary 
schools  of  William  Dean  Howells  and  Henry  James. 
Pick  up  her  novel  Patience  Sparhawk  and  Her  Times, 
written  over  twenty  years  ago,  and  you  will  find  a 
trace  of  that  feeling  in  her  delineation  of  Patience's 
schoolteacher,  who  read  these  literary  gods.  But  Mrs. 
Atherton  seldom  speaks  her  mind  by  indirection;  all 
who  cared  have  known  her  opinions  as  fast  as  she 
reached  them.  She  has  no  use  for  commonplace 
people  in  life  or  fiction;  and  by  commonplace  people 
we  mean  not  everyday  people,  but  people  about  whom 
there  is  no  distinction  of  thought  or  sensibility,  who 
have  no  sharpness,  no  individuality  however  simple, 
no  gift  however  slight.  Henry  James  Forman  says 

41 


42    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

that  Mrs.  Atherton  is  the  novelist  of  genius,  but  this 
is  one  of  those  brilliantly  epigrammatic  characteriza 
tions  which  convey  the  truth  by  bold  exaggeration. 
She  has  not  always  written  of  geniuses,  but  always 
she  has  written  of  men  and  women  who  had  backbone, 
courage,  distinct  and  recognizable  selves,  ambition, 
wit,  daring,  not  merely  flash  but  fire.  She  really  writes 
about  herself  in  dozens  of  reincarnations.  Nothing 
daunts  her  that  is  alive — vulgarity,  wickedness,  weak 
ness  and  bold  sin  she  can  understand  and  portray  as 
accurately  as  the  shining  virtues.  The  only  thing  she 
cannot  endure  is  the  dead-alive.  Mr.  Forman  was 
in  essentials  right  when  he  said  of  her  in  the  New 
York  Evening  Post  of  June  15,  1918: 

"Genius  has  a  particular  fascination  for  her,  and 
with  a  rare  boldness  she  would  rather  face  difficulties 
of  creating  or  re-creating  genius  in  her  fiction  than  to 
waste  time  on  mediocre  protagonists.  With  the  newer 
school  of  English  and  American  novelists,  with  the 
Frank  Swinnertons,  the  J.  D.  Beresfords,  or  the  Mary 
Wattses,  she  has  nothing  in  common,  unless  it  be 
their  patience.  But  she  will  not  expend  that  patience 
on  the  drab  or  the  colorless. 

"An  Alexander  Hamilton  or  a  Rezanov  seems  to 
be  made  to  her  hand,  and  if  she  cannot  find  what  she 
wants  in  history  or  in  fact,  she  prefers  to  dream  of 
a  woman  genius,  the  young  German  countess,  Gisela 
Niebuhr,  a  Brunnhilde  who  leads  her  sisters  to  re 
volt  against  Prussianism  and  all  that  makes  Germany 
hideous  to  the  world  to-day. 

"To  understand  genius,  it  has  been  said,  is  to  ap 
proach  it,  and  Mrs.  Atherton  beyond  any  doubt  under- 


GERTRUDE  ATHERTON  43 

stands  genius.  She  understands  its  trials,  temptations, 
vagaries  and  accomplishments.  She  knows  that  the 
fires  which  feed  it  are  certain  to  break  out  in  many 
ways  aside  from  its  recognized  work.  Did  Mrs. 
Atherton  take  the  trouble  to  acknowledge  the  exist 
ence  of  Mrs.  Grundy,  it  would  be  only  that  she  might 
destroy  that  unpopular  lady. 

"  'Brains'  is  Mrs.  Atherton's  favorite  word.  Any 
printer  who  sets  up  a  novel  of  hers  must  add  a  spe 
cial  stock  to  his  font  of  the  six  letters  that  spell  it. 
Neither  in  her  life  nor  in  her  work  has  she  any  pa 
tience  with  dullness.  She  could  no  more  have  writ 
ten  Pollyanna  than  she  could  have  written  the  Book  of 
Job.  The  blithe,  all-conquering  brain  is  her  field  of  re 
search." 

Mrs.  Atherton,  he  tells  us,  neither  talks  nor  writes 
"like  a  book."  She  is  "always  buoyant  and  stimulat 
ing.  Brains  occupy  as  much  space  in  her  talk  as  in 
her  books.  She  is  never  dull."  And  turning  to  The 
Conqueror,  he  develops  his  idea : 

"There  were,  we  know,  a  few  persons  who  resisted 
Alexander  Hamilton.  But  important  though  they 
were,  they  were  as  dust  under  Mrs.  Atherton's  feet. 
Hamilton  led  a  charmed  life.  Hurricanes  had  spared 
him  and  the  storms  of  war,  of  party,  of  faction  left 
him  safe.  He  was  a  genius,  and  cosmic  forces  en 
folded  him  as  in  a  protective  shell.  Surely  no  char 
acter  was  ever  more  certainly  created  to  the  hand  of 
a  novelist  than  was  Hamilton  for  Mrs.  Atherton.  Not 
a  merit  or  fault  of  his,  but  Mrs.  Atherton  could 
caress  it  with  a  mother's  hand.  How  she  hates  Clin 
ton  because  he  fought  her  idol,  and  how  much  she 


44 

despises  Jefferson!  But  Washington — even  the  most 
austere  of  the  virtues  of  Washington  pass  with  Mrs. 
Atherton,  because  he  loved  Hamilton  as  a  father  loves 
a  son.  .  .  . 

"Critics  have  sometimes  charged  Mrs.  Atherton  with 
the  grave  misdemeanor  of  writing  like  herself,  not 
like  somebody  else;  of  not  being  Mrs.  Wharton,  of 
not  being  Henry  James  or  Robert  Louis  Stevenson. 
The  charge  is  just.  She  is  not  any  of  those  persons, 
nor  in  the  least  like  them.  She  does  not  write  for  a 
handful  of  other  writers,  nor  does  she  waste  much 
time  in  polishing  sentences.  She  writes  for  the  pub 
lic.  .  .  .  You  cannot  read  five  pages  of  her  fiction 
without  feeling  certain  that  their  author  has  lived  life, 
not  merely  dreamed  it." 

This  is  the  most  illuminating  comment  on  Mrs. 
Atherton  that  has  so  far  seen  the  light  of  day,  and 
we  shall  not  attempt  more  than  to  supply  a  footnote 
or  two.  Mr.  Forman  says  that  Mrs.  Atherton  writes 
for  the  public  and  not  for  writers.  True,  but  is  it 
the  public  which  reads  Gene  Stratton-Porter  or  Polly- 
anna  ?  Decidedly  not.  Her  public — a  very  large  one — 
consists  of  those  who  do  not  ask  or  desire  that  fiction 
shall  interpret  them  to  themselves  or  shape  their  lives 
for  them,  consciously  or  otherwise.  It  is  made  up 
of  the  thousands  who  are  capable  of  some  degree  of 
purely  aesthetic  enjoyment  in  literature.  For  the  pure 
aesthetes  Mrs.  Wharton  et  at.  For  the  unaesthetic 
and  ethical  the  two  Mrs.  Porters.  For  the  great  host 
who  appreciate  literary  art  and  story-telling  skill  but 
who  won't  sacrifice  everything  for  them,  who  demand 
a  real  narrative,  color,  action,  suspense  and  seek  no 


GERTRUDE  ATHERTON  45 

moral  end  in  the  tale  to  justify  the  tale's  existence — 
for  them  Mrs.  Atherton.  And  they — these  people  of 
her  vast  audience — are  the  great  middle  ground.  They 
represent  in  their  attitude  toward  fiction  the  healthiest 
note  of  all. 

The  "literary"  or  highbrow  attitude  toward  Mrs. 
Atherton  is  perfectly  conveyed  in  an  article  upon  her 
by  Mr.  H.  W.  Boynton,  also  published  in  the  New 
York  Evening  Post  but  over  two  years  earlier,  on 
February  26,  1916.  We  extract  a  few  illustrative 
sentences : 

"I  may  say  frankly  that  I  write  of  Mrs.  Atherton 
not  out  of  a  special  admiration  for  her  work,"  begins 
Mr.  Boynton,  in  a  highly  self -revelatory  manner,  "but 
because  for  any  surveyor  of  modern  American  fic 
tion  she  is  so  evidently  a  figure  in  some  measure  'to 
be  reckoned  with.'  .  .  .  Her  publicity  may  be  said  to 
have  been  extraordinary  in  proportion  to  her  achieve 
ment.  .  .  .  The  person  who  is  examining  her  work 
as  literature  can  find  nothing  to  the  purpose  here 
(Mrs.  Balfame}" 

How  comfortable  to  feel  like  that !  Mrs.  Atherton, 
with  an  amused  smile,  would  probably  say,  at  the  in 
timation  that  there  was  no  "literature"  in  Mrs.  Bal 
fame,  and  perhaps  other  of  her  books:  "But  life  is 
so  much  more  than  literature!"  When  Mr.  Boynton 
charges  her  with  leaving  life  out  of  her  books  Mrs. 
Atherton  will  be  seriously  exercised. 

Gertrude  Atherton  is  a  great  grandniece  of  Ben 
jamin  Franklin.  She  was  born  in  1859  in  San  Fran 
cisco,  the  daughter  of  Thomas  L.  Horn.  She  was 
educated  at  St.  Mary's  Hall,  Benicia,  California,  and 


46    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

at  Sayre  Institute,  Lexington,  Kentucky.  At  an  early 
age  she  was  married  to  George  H.  Bowen  Atherton, 
a  Californian  who  declined  to  travel  and  who  died 
when  he  finally  was  lured  to  Chile  as  a  guest  on  a 
warship.  Mrs.  Atherton  describes  her  marriage  as 
"one  of  the  most  important  incidents  of  my  school 
life." 

She  had  always  wanted  to  go  round  about  the 
world  and  when  she  wasn't  able  to  do  so  she  amused 
herself  by  writing  complete  travel  books,  taking  her 
characters  through  all  parts  of  Europe.  She  knew 
enough  geography  to  make  her  stories  truthful. 

"And  I  believe,"  Mrs.  Atherton  told  Alma  Luise 
Olsen  in  an  interview  appearing  in  Books  and  the 
Book  World  of  The  Sun,  New  York,  on  March  31, 
1918,  "that  I  apply  some  of  those  same  ideas  to  my 
writing  of  fiction  to-day.  Most  lives  are  humdrum 
and  commonplace,  on  the  surface  at  least.  So  I  take 
characters  that  haven't  had  half  a  chance  in  real  life 
and  re-create  their  destinies  for  them  and — well,  my 
books  are  the  result.  I  got  the  idea  from  Taine  when 
I  was  very  young." 

This  interview  also  threw  interesting  light  on  Mrs. 
Atherton's  novel,  The  Avalanche,  announced  for  pub 
lication  in  the  spring  of  1919  by  Frederick  A.  Stokes 
Company,  New  York.  The  Avalanche  is  a  tale  of 
California  society  with  a  mystery  plot,  and  deals  with 
a  young  woman  whose  devoted  but  shrewd  New  York 
husband  will  not  rest  until  he  has  solved  the  puzzle 
of  appearances  surrounding  her.  Mrs.  Atherton,  sub 
merged  most  of  the  time  in  her  New  York  apartment 
on  Riverside  Drive  with  war  work — she  returned 


GERTRUDE  ATHERTON  47 

from  the  European  battlefronts  to  be  the  American 
head  of  Le  Bien-etre  du  Blesse,  "the  welfare  of  the 
wounded" — rose  to  the  surface  several  days  in  the 
week  at  a  quiet  country  spot  in  New  Jersey,  and  wrote. 
The  story  developing  thirteen  chapters,  she  split  the 
last  in  two. 

"I  wrote  and  copied  50,000  words  in  seven  weeks 
— which  shows  what  one  can  do  away  from  the  tele 
phone.  Margaret  Anglin  told  me  the  original  inci 
dent  and  attempted  to  persuade  me  to  write  it  as  a 
play  for  her.  Now  that  the  book  is  finished  she  would 
never  recognize  any  part  of  it  but  an  incident  in  the 
climax. 

"That's  always  the  way  with  writing  novels  and 
stories.  I  never  know  how  they  are  going  to  come 
out  when  I  begin,  any  more  than  I  could  take  a  child 
right  now  and  say  just  how  I  was  going  to  shape  its 
whole  life. 

"Most  writers  who  deal  with  California  in  their 
books  tell  about  nature  and  the  plain  people  and  the 
proletariat  and  such  things.  No  one  but  myself  has 
ever  told  anything  about  social  life  in  San  Francisco. 
It  is  full  of  drama.  It  resembles  New  York  in  part, 
but  it  has  a  character  all  its  own." 

Mrs.  Atherton  works  every  morning  from  seven 
until  noon,  and  does  with  dry  bread  and  tea  for  a 
working  lunch.  Her  New  York  apartment  has  bal 
conied  windows  overlooking  the  Hudson.  Before  the 
door  of  the  house  which  contains  it  stands  a  Barnard 
College  dormitory.  Eleanor  Gates,  writing  in  Books 
and  Authors  for  September,  1917,  said: 

"In  the  wintertime,  on  'first  Sundays/  the  Atherton 


48    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

apartment  gathers  in  a  very  crush  of  notables — 
authors,  painters,  soldiers,  diplomats,  publishers,  jour 
nalists,  people  of  fashion,  scholars,  travelers  and  not 
a  few  who  figure  under  the  general  title  of  'admirers 
of  genius,'  and  who  have  maneuvered  for  a  card. 
Mrs.  Atherton  has  the  Englishwoman's  interest  in 
world  politics;  her  knowledge  of  things  European  is  of 
the  rare  first-hand  kind;  her  horizon  is  international. 
The  lucky  old-time  friend  of  the  author's  from  'out 
West'  meets  in  her  drawing-room  a  good  percentage 
of  the  most  distinguished  people  of  the  metropolis, 
along  with  men  and  women  who  are  prominent 
abroad." 

It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  Mrs.  Atherton,  had  she 
lived  in  France  prior  to  1789,  would  have  been  a 
woman  of  a  salon.  If  there  are  modern  de  Stae'ls  she 
is  among  them ! 

The  first  book  of  Mrs.  Atherton's  read  by  the  pres 
ent  writer  was  Senator  North,  and  he  still  holds  it  to 
be  one  of  her  best.  It  was  written  in  Rouen  and  pub 
lished  in  1900.  Mr.  Boynton  cites  it  as  evidence  that 
she  is  "both  consciously  and  unconsciously  an  Ameri 
can."  He  thinks  that  "her  spread-eagling,  her  'barbaric 
yawp,'  audible  if  involuntary,"  was  what  won  atten 
tion  for  her  in  England  "before  her  own  country  had 
begun  to  notice  her."  And  before  Mr.  Boynton  had 
begun  to  notice  her. 

Mrs.  Atherton  has  traveled  very  widely.  Before 
she  starts  work  on  a  new  novel  she  visits  the  contem 
plated  scene  of  action.  She  studies  the  characteristics 
of  the  people  and  exhausts  all  her  sources  of  informa 
tion  concerning  the  place  and  its  history.  As  a  result 


GERTRUDE  ATHERTON  49 

vividness  is  never  lacking  in  her  books,  "local  color" 
is  there  in  such  measure  as  she  may  determine  desir 
able,  character-drawing  is  reen forced  by  traits  observed 
as  well  as  traits  assumed.  She  is  both  quick  and  keen. 
She  notes  and  then  generalizes  with  broad,  sweeping 
conclusions.  Faults  of  taste  are  imputed  to  her,  but 
this  means  merely  that  those  who  make  the  criticism 
would  exercise  a  different  selective  choice  over  the 
teemingly  abundant  material  she  invariably  accumu 
lates.  Faults  of  structure  are  charged  to  her  by  those 
who  do  not  like  the  way  she  and  her  characters  shape 
amorphous  life  to  their  own  ends.  "Lack  of  control 
of  her  material"  is  the  disapproving  phrase.  Mrs. 
Atherton  has  "style"  only  in  the  larger  sense  of  self- 
expression,  "but  in  the  sense  of  that  special  and  trained 
skill  by  which  an  artist  expresses  life  with  an  almost 
infallible  fitness,  it  is  difficult  to  connect  the  word  with 
her  at  all."  We  should  hope  so.  The  "almost  in 
fallible  fitness"  makes  for  the  satisfaction  of  those 
who  have  their  own  infallible  standards  of  what  is 
fit.  Life  hasn't  any.  It  lets  anything  happen.  Life 
is  vulgar,  broad,  incongruous,  surprising,  touching. 

"My  style  is  all  my  own,  and  not  the  result  of  maga 
zine  training — which  stamps  the  work  of  every  other 
writer  of  the  first  class  in  the  country."  There  is 
something  in  that  and  those  who  quarrel  with  it  do 
so  mainly  because  they  won't  allow  Mrs.  Atherton  a 
certain  exaggeration  of  statement  to  drive  her  point 
home. 

Even  Mr.  Boynton  allows  that  Perch  of  the  Devil 
contains  some  of  Mrs.  Atherton's  finest  work  and  is 
"a  considerable  book  in  its  way."  The  character  of 


50    [THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

Ida  Compton  is  one  which  has  excited  and  still  excites 
so  much  interest  that  it  is  worth  while  to  quote  Mrs. 
Atherton's  own  explanation  of  how  she  came  to  go 
to  Butte,  Montana,  and  evolve  her.  She  had  been 
struck,  as  who  has  not,  by  the  marvelous  adaptability 
of  American  women  in  the  capitals  of  Europe;  "four 
or  five  years  of  wealth,  study,  travel,  associations,  and 
they  are  fitted  to  hold  their  own  with  any  of  Europe's 
ancient  aristocracies. 

"I  met  so  many  of  these  women  when  I  lived  in 
Europe,"  explains  Mrs.  Atherton,  "that  it  finally  oc 
curred  to  me  to  visit  some  of  the  Western  towns  and 
study  the  type  at  its  source.  The  result  is  Ida  Comp 
ton.  In  the  various  stages  of  her  development,  more 
over — beginning  when  she  was  the  young  daughter 
of  a  Butte  rniner  and  laundress — I  found  myself  meet 
ing  all  American  women  in  one.  The  West  to-day — 
particularly  the  Northwest — embodies  what  used  to  be 
known  as  merely  'American.'  Any  one  of  practically 
all  the  Western  women  of  nerve,  ambition,  and  large 
latent  abilities,  that  I  met  in  my  travels  through  their 
section  of  the  country,  might  develop  into  a  leader 
of  New  York  society,  a  Roman-American  matron,  or 
a  member  of  Queen  Mary's  court,  frowning  upon  too 
smart  society.  With  their  puritanical  inheritance  they 
might  even  develop  into  good  Bostonians,  although 
they  'gravitate'  naturally  to  the  more  fluid  societies.  If 
they  choose  to  retain  their  slang,  they  'put  it  over'  with 
an  innocent  dash  that  is  a  part  of  their  natural  refine 
ment.  They  are  virtuous  by  instinct,  and  atmospher 
ically  broadminded ;  full  of  easy  good  nature,  but  quick 
to  resent  a  personal  liberty ;  they  are  both  sophisticated 


GERTRUDE  ATHERTON  51 

and  direct,  honest  and  subtle.  With  all  their  undiluted 
Americanism  there  is  no  development  beyond  them, 
no  role  they  cannot  play.  For  that  reason  these  Ida 
Comptons  are  fundamentally  all  American  women. 
The  crudest  remind  one  constantly  of  hundreds  of 
women  one  knows  in  the  higher  American  civilizations. 
And  I  found  studying  them  at  the  source  and  develop 
ing  one  of  them  from  'the  ground  up,'  watching  all 
her  qualities — good  and  bad — grow,  diminish,  fuse, 
but  never  quite  change,  even  more  interesting  than 
meeting  the  finished  product  in  Europe  and  amusing 
myself  speculating  upon  her  past." 

In  the  long  list  of  Mrs.  Atherton's  books  with  which 
this  chapter  concludes  it  would  be  desirable,  but  it  is 
hardly  possible,  to  follow  the  example  of  guidebooks 
and  star  and  doublestar  her  more  important  novels.  It 
is  impracticable  because  any  such  designations  would 
have  to  be  those  of  a  single  taste  or  of  a  coterie  of 
tastes.  Patience  Sparhawk,  the  dramatized  biography 
of  Alexander  Hamilton  called  The  Conqueror,  and 
possibly  her  recent  novel  of  a  German  revolution,  or 
the  revolt  of  the  German  women  under  the  leadership 
of  Gisela  Niebuhr,  would  be  marked  with  the  double 
star;  certainly  The  Conqueror  would.  The  present 
writer  would  singlestar  Senator  North  and  the  novels 
of  early  California — The  Doomswoman,  Rezanov, 
The  Splendid  Idle  Forties  and  The  Calif ornians.  Of 
The  Living  Present  we  must  speak  to  call  attention  to 
the  final  paper  in  the  book's  second  part,  a  tribute  to 
four  New  York  women,  of  whom  one  is  Honore  Will- 
sie,  the  subject  of  a  later  chapter  in  this  book.  The 
Living  Present  is  not  a  novel.  The  first  half  is  con- 


52    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

cerned  with  French  women  in  war  time,  the  fruit  of 
Mrs.  Atherton's  observations  and  experience  in  war 
work;  the  second  half  has  the  general  title  Feminism 
in  Peace  and  War.  Perch  of  the  Devil  must  be  dou- 
blestarred,  so  probably  must  Ancestors  and  Tower  of 
Ivory.  Such  books  as  Rulers  of  Kings  and  The  Trav 
elling  Thirds  are  least  important.  Mrs.  Balfame,  as  a 
capital  mystery  story,  the  result  doubtless  of  Mrs. 
Atherton's  attendance  at  a  celebrated  murder  trial  in 
the  interests  of  a  New  York  newspaper,  must  be 
single  starred  in  any  list.  The  Valiant  Runaways, 
long  out  of  print,  has  been  republished  this  fall  ( 1918). 
It  is  a  story  for  boys,  of  Spanish  California,  with  an 
encounter  with  a  savage  bear,  a  rescue  from  a  danger 
ous  river,  capture  by  Indians  and  an  escape  on  wild 
mustangs  capped  by  a  revolutionary  battle !  The  per 
formance  may  be  considered  a  final  reminder  of  Mrs. 
Atherton's  versatility.  No  one  has  ever  found  fault 
with  her  for  not  being  versatile! 

BOOKS  BY  GERTRUDE  ATHERTON 

A  Whirl  Asunder,  1895.  Frederick  A.  Stokes  Com 
pany,  New  York.  Now  out  of  print. 

Patience  Sparhawk  and  Her  Times,  1897.    Stokes. 

His  Fortunate  Grace,  1897.  John  Lane  Company. 
New  York.  Now  out  of  print. 

American  Wives  and  English  Husbands,  1898. 
Dodd,  Mead  &  Company,  New  York. 

The  Calif ornians,  1898.     Stokes. 

A  Daughter  of  the  Vine,  1899.    Lane. 

The  Valiant  Runaways,  1899.    Dodd,  Mead. 


GERTRUDE  ATHERTON  1,3 

Senator  North,  1900.    Lane. 

The  Aristocrats,  1901.     Lane. 

The  Conqueror,  1902.     Stokes. 

The  Splendid  Idle  Forties,  1902.     Stokes. 

A  Few  of  Hamilton's  Letters,  1903.    Stokes. 

Rulers  of  Kings,  1904.  Harper  &  Brothers,  New 
York. 

The  Bell  in  the  Fog,  1905.    Harper. 

The  Travelling  Thirds,  1905.     Harper. 

Ancestors,  1907.     Harper. 

The  Gorgeous  Isle,  1908.  Doubleday,  Page  &  Com 
pany.  Not  listed  in  their  last  catalogue. 

Tower  of  Ivory,  1910.     Stokes. 

Julia  France  and  Her  Times,  1912.    Stokes. 

Perch  of  the  Devil,  1914.     Stokes. 

California — An  Intimate  History,  1914.     Harper. 

Before  the  Gringo  Came  (Combining  The  Dooms- 
woman,  published  in  1892,  and  Rezanov,  published  in 
1906),  1915.  Stokes. 

Mrs.  Balfame,  1916.    Stokes. 

The  Living  Present,  1917.     Stokes. 

The  White  Morning,  1918.    Stokes. 

The  Avalanche,  1919.    Stokes. 


CHAPTER  V 

MARY  ROBERTS  RINEHART 

I  AM  being  very  frank,"  exclaims  Mary  Roberts 
Rinehart.  As  if  she  ever  were  otherwise!  "I 
have  never  had  any  illusions  about  the  work  I 
do.  I  am,  frankly,  a  story-teller.  Some  day  I  may 
be  a  novelist. 

"I  want  to  write  life.  But  life  is  not  always  clean 
and  happy.  It  is  sometimes  mean  and  sordid  and 
cheap.  These  are  the  shadows  that  outline  the  novel 
ist's  picture.  But  I  will  never  write  anything  which 
I  cannot  place  in  my  boys'  hands." 

Thus  Mrs.  Rinehart  in  the  American  Magazine  for 
October,  1917.  It  is  almost  all  you  need  to  know  to 
understand  her  work.  Almost,  but  not  quite.  Add 
this: 

"I  sometimes  think,  if  I  were  advising  a  young 
woman  as  to  a  career,  that  I  should  say :  'First  pick 
your  husband.' ' 

Mary  Roberts  (as  she  was)  picked  hers  at  nine 
teen  and  was  married  to  him  nearly  four  months 
before  she  became  twenty.  That  was  in  1896;  dates 
are  not  one  of  her  concealments.  In  fact,  she  has  no 
concealments,  only  reticences. 

She  was  the  daughter  of  Thomas  Beveridge  Rob 
erts  and  Cornelia  (Gilleland)  Roberts  of  Pittsburgh, 
and  had  been  a  pupil  of  the  city's  public  and  high 

54 


MARY  ROBERTS  RINEHART  55 

schools,  then  of  a  training  school  for  nurses  where 
she  acquired  that  familiarity  with  hospital  scenes 
which  was  necessary  in  writing  The  Amazing  Adven 
tures  of  Letitia  Carberry,  the  stories  collected  under 
the  title  Tish  and  the  novel  K.  And  then  she  became 
the  wife  of  Stanley  Marshall  Rinehart,  a  Pittsburgh 
physician.  And  then 

"Life  was  very  good  to  me  at  the  beginning,"  says 
Mrs.  Rinehart.  "It  gave  me  a  strong  body,  and  it  gave 
me  my  sons  before  it  gave  me  my  work.  I  do  not  know 
what  would  have  happened  had  the  work  come  first. 
But  I  should  have  had  the  children.  I  know  that.  I 
had  always  wanted  them.  Even  my  hospital  experi 
ence,  which  rent  the  veil  of  life  for  me  and  showed  it 
often  terrible,  could  not  change  that  fundamental  thing 
we  call  the  maternal  instinct.  ...  I  would  forfeit 
every  particle  of  success  that  has  come  to  me  rather 
than  lose  any  part,  even  the  smallest,  of  my  family 
life.  It  is  on  the  foundation  of  my  home  that  I  have 
builded. 

"Yet,  for  a  time,  it  seemed  that  my  sons  were  to 
be  all  I  was  to  have  out  of  life.  From  twenty  to  thirty 
I  was  an  invalid.  .  .  .  This  last  summer  (1917),  after 
forty  days  in  the  saddle  through  unknown  mountains 
in  Montana  and  Washington,  I  was  as  unwearied  as 
they  were.  But  I  paid  ten  years  for  them." 

She  thinks  that  is  how  she  came  to  write.  She  had 
always  wanted  to.  She  began  in  1905 — she  was 
twenty-nine  that  year — and  worked  at  a  "tiny"  ma 
hogany  desk  or  upon  a  card  table,  "so  low  and  so 
movable.  It  can  sit  by  the  fire  or  in  a  sunny  window." 
She  "learned  to  use  a  typewriter  with  my  two  fore;- 


56    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

fingers,  with  a  baby  on  my  knee!"  She  wrote  when 
the  youngsters  were  out  for  a  walk,  asleep,  playing. 
"It  was  frightfully  hard.  ...  I  found  that  when  I 
wanted  to  write  I  could  not,  and  then  when  leisure 
came  and  I  went  to  my  desk,  I  had  nothing  to  say." 

Her  first  work  was  mainly  short  stories  and  poems. 
Her  very  first  work  was  verse  for  children.  Her  first 
check  was  for  $25,  the  reward  of  a  short  article  telling 
how  she  had  systematized  the  work  of  the  household 
with  two  maids  and  a  negro  "buttons."  She  sold  one 
or  two  of  the  poems  for  children  and  with  a  sense  of 
guilt  at  the  desertion  of  her  family  made  a  trip  to  New 
York.  She  made  the  weary  rounds  in  one  day,  "a 
heart-breaking  day,  going  from  publisher  to  publisher." 
In  two  places  she  saw  responsible  persons  and  every 
where  her  verses  were  turned  down.  "But  one  man 
was  very  kind  to  me,  and  to  that  publishing  house  I 
later  sent  The  Circular  Staircase,  my  first  novel.  They 
published  it  and  some  eight  other  books  of  mine." 

In  her  first  year  of  sustained  effort  at  writing,  Mrs. 
Rinehart  made  about  $1,200.  She  was  surrounded  by 
"sane  people  who  cried  me  down,"  but  who  were 
merry  without  being  contemptuous.  Her  husband  has 
been  her  everlasting  help.  He  "has  stood  squarely  be 
hind  me,  always.  His  belief  in  me,  his  steadiness  and 
his  sanity  and  his  humor  have  kept  me  going,  when, 
as  has  happened  now  and  then,  my  little  world  of 
letters  has  shaken  under  my  feet."  To  the  three  boys 
their  mother's  work  has  been  a  matter  of  course  ever 
since  they  can  remember.  "I  did  not  burst  on  them 
gloriously.  I  am  glad  to  say  that  they  think  I  am  a 
much  better  mother  than  I  am  a  writer,  and  that  the 


MARY  ROBERTS  RINEHART  57 

family  attitude  in  general  has  been  attentive  but  not 
supine.  They  regard  it  exactly  as  a  banker's  family 
regards  his  bank." 

Sometimes,  Mrs.  Rinehart,  a  banker's  family  regards 
his  bank  as  a  confounded  nuisance!  But  that's  when 
the  bank  takes  charge  of  the  man  and  demands  an 
undue  share  of  his  time  and  energy.  You  have  never 
let  your  writing  do  that.  With  you  it  has  been  family 
first!  Most  of  the  work  of  the  twelve  years  from 
1905  to  1917  which  witnessed  your  signal  success  was 
done  in  your  home.  But  sometimes  when  you  had  a 
long  piece  of  work  to  do  you  felt,  as  you  tell  us,  "the 
necessity  of  getting  away  from  everything  for  a  little 
while."  So,  beginning  about  1915,  you  rented  a  room 
in  an  office  building  in  Pittsburgh  once  each  year  while 
you  had  a  novel  in  hand.  It  was  barely  furnished  and 
the  most  significant  omission  was  a  telephone.  There 
you  got  through  "a  surprising  amount  of  work."  And 
then,  in  1917,  you  became  a  commuter. 

Your  earnings  had  risen  from  the  $1,200  of  that 
first  year  to  $50,000  and  possibly  more  in  a  twelve 
month.  But  let  us  have  the  story  in  your  own  words : 

"My  business  with  its  various  ramifications  had  been 
growing ;  an  enormous  correspondence,  involving  busi 
ness  details,  foreign  rights,  copyrights,  moving  picture 
rights,  translation  rights,  second  serial  rights,  and  dra 
matizations,  had  made  from  the  small  beginning  of  that 
book  of  poems  a  large  and  complicated  business. 

"I  had  added  political  and  editorial  writing  to  my 
other  work,  and  also  records  of  travel.  I  was  quite 
likely  to  begin  the  day  with  an  article  opposing  capital 


58    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

punishment,  spend  the  noon  hours  in  the  Rocky  Moun 
tains,  and  finish  off  with  a  love  story! 

"I  developed  the  mental  agility  of  a  mountain  goat! 
Filing  cases  entered  into  my  life,  card  index  systems. 
To  glance  into  my  study  after  working  hours  was 
dismaying. 

"And  at  last  the  very  discerning  head  of  the  family 
made  a  stand.  He  said  that  no  business  man  would 
try  to  sleep  in  his  office,  and  yet  that  virtually  was 
what  I  was  doing." 

This  from  a  doctor,  forsooth!  But  perhaps  Dr. 
Rinehart  never  bound  up  a  cut  in  the  little  room  just 
off  the  front  parlor. 

Nevertheless  he  was  right.  "I  am  at  home  as  soon 
as  the  small  boy  is,  or  sooner,"  Mrs.  Rinehart  pro 
claims.  "And  I  am  better  for  the  change.  It  takes 
me  out  of  the  house.  The  short  ride  in  the  train  or 
the  motor  to  the  city  detaches  me  automatically  from 
the  grocery  list  and  a  frozen  pipe  in  the  garage. 

"In  the  city  I  have  two  bright  and  attractive  rooms. 
My  desk  is  ready;  my  secretary  is  waiting.  Some 
times  I  work  all  day;  sometimes  I  look  over  my  mail 
and  go  out  to  luncheon  and  do  not  come  back. 

"Then  automatically  the  train  or  car  going  home 
detaches  me  from  publishers  and  autograph  hunters 
and  pen  and  ink  and  paper.  I  am  ready  to  play." 

She  lives  in  Sewickley,  a  suburb  of  Pittsburgh.  The 
home  is  known  as  Glen  Osborne.  She  is  not  an  early 
riser.  "I  like  to  let  the  day  break  on  me  gradually." 
After  breakfast  there  are  household  arrangements. 
She  is  no  slave  to  her  typewriter.  "I  may  say  that  I 
work  every  week-day  morning  and  perhaps  three  after- 


MARY  ROBERTS  RINEHART  59 

noons."  She  goes  riding,  plays  golf,  visits  the  dress 
maker  the  other  three.  She  is  a  member  of  the  Equal 
Franchise  Association  and  of  the  Juvenile  Court  Asso 
ciation.  There  are  long  vacations,  but  what  she  sees 
and  experiences  a-traveling  is  usually  rendered  to  her 
readers.  "Thus  in  the  summer  we  spend  weeks  in  the 
saddle  in  the  mountains  of  the  Far  West,  or  fishing  in 
Canada.  .  .  .  These  outdoor  summers  were  planned 
at  first  because  there  were  four  men  and  one  woman 
in  our  party.  Now,  however,  I  love  the  open  as  men 
do."  She  writes  about  it  better  than  many  men  do. 

Mrs.  Rinehart,  in  any  account  of  herself,  is  certain 
to  record  the  fact  that  she  has  never  done  newspaper 
work,  although  in  recent  years  she  has  done  "political 
and  editorial  writing."  She  was  never  a  newspaper 
reporter.  The  "moral  equivalent,"  as  William  James 
would  have  styled  it,  was,  in  her  case,  undoubtedly  her 
hospital  experience.  Like  any  young  nurse,  she  saw 
"life  in  the  raw,"  to  borrow  the  unoriginal  but  com 
pletely  expressive  phrase  used  in  her  novel  K.  And 
then  she  had  the  great  fortune  to  marry  happily  and 
to  become  a  mother.  This  is  the  secret  of  her  success, 
and  all  of  it.  Young  and  impressionable,  she  saw 
what  life  is  at  its  most  agonizing,  most  horrible,  most 
heroic  moments.  Still  young,  but  with  her  thoroughly 
normal  and  wholesome  nature  losing  its  plasticity  and 
taking  on  a  definite  mold,  she  found  what  life  can 
be  in  its  permanent  and  most  deeply  satisfying  beauty. 
Sympathy,  genuine  affection  and  sanative  humor  were 
hers  in  fair  measure;  when  they  failed  her  momen 
tarily  her  husband  replenished  the  healing  store. 

Her  first  novel,  The  Circular  Staircase,  was  a  mys- 


60     THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

tery  tale;  so  was  her  second,  The  Man  in  Lower  Ten. 
They  appeared  in  1908  and  1909  respectively.  Her 
first  play  had  been  produced  in  New  York  in  1907. 
This  was  Double  Life,  staged  at  the  Bijou  Theater. 
In  conjunction  with  her  husband,  she  wrote  The 
Avenger  (1908)  and  much  later  she  collaborated  with 
Avery  Hopwood  in  the  highly  successful  farce  Seven 
Days.  This  was  first  played  at  the  Astor  Theater, 
New  York.  In  1913,  at  the  Harris  Theater,  New 
York,  her  farce  Cheer  Up  was  put  on.  "Two  plays 
were  successful,"  in  Mrs.  Rinehart's  opinion. 

She  has  written  short  stories  for  all  the  most  pop 
ular  American  magazines — the  Saturday  Evening 
Post  perhaps  particularly;  McClurc's,  Everybody's, 
Collier's,  the  American  and  the  Metropolitan  are  others 
she  enumerates  offhand.  And  her  short  stories  are 
among  the  most  excellent  produced  by  a  living  Ameri 
can  writer.  Some  of  them,  unified  by  possession  of 
the  same  principal  character  or  characters,  have  been 
published  in  book  form,  as  Tish  and  Bab,  a  Sub-Deb. 
The  stories  in  Tish  relate  various  escapades  of  an  un 
married  woman  of  advanced  years,  the  heroine  of  Mrs. 
Rinehart's  earlier  novel,  The  Amazing  Adventures  of 
Letitia  Carberry.  Letitia  Carberry,  "Tish,"  is  a  per 
son  without  a  literary  parallel.  Well-to-do,  excite 
ment-loving,  curious,  with  a  passion  for  guiding  the 
lives  of  two  other  maidens  like  herself,  Lizzie  and 
Aggie;  with  a  nephew,  Charlie  Sands,  who  throws 
up  hopeless  hands  before  her  unpredictable  perform 
ances,  Miss  Carberry  is  unique  and  funny  beyond 
easy  characterization.  She  pokes  at  the  carburetor 
with  a  hairpin,  rides  horseback  in  a  divided  skirt,  puts 


MARY  ROBERTS  RINEHART  61 

great  faith  in  blackberry  cordial,  shoulders  a  shotgun 
and  mends  the  canoe  with  chewing  gum.  These  things 
in  the  tales  composing  Tish;  in  The  Amazing  Adven 
tures  of  Letitia  Carberry  we  have  a  story  in  which  the 
mystery  of  extraordinary  and  scandalous  occurrences 
in  a  hospital  where  Tish  is  a  patient  is  finally  solved  by 
her  efforts.  Nothing  affords  a  better  exhibition  of  Mrs. 
Rinehart's  skill  as  a  story-teller  than  this  novel. 
Things  that  with  less  skillful  handling  would  be  both 
ghoulish  and  shocking,  are  so  related  that  they  strike 
the  reader  merely  as  bizarre  or  outrageously  laugh 
able,  or  as  heightening  the  unguessable  puzzle  of  what 
is  to  come.  The  technical  triumph  is  very  great,  as 
great  as  that  achieved  in  the  last  half  of  George  M. 
Cohan's  play,  Seven  Keys  to  Baldpate,  where  a  corpse 
is  lugged  about  without  offending  the  observer.  The 
Amazing  Adventures  of  Letitia  Carberry  is  a  remark 
able  evidence  of  the  lengths  to  which  farce  can  be  car 
ried  and  remain  inoffensive — and  become  the  source 
of  helpless  mirth. 

Bab,  a  Sub-Deb,  with  its  account  of  the  doings  01  a 
girl  who  has  not  yet  "come  out,"  a  sub-debutante,  is 
also  unique  and,  to  the  extent  of  the  character's  capac 
ity,  just  as  diverting.  Mrs.  Rinehart  does  nothing  by 
halves,  she  exploits  the  possibilities  of  her  people  to  the 
top  of  their  bents — and  hers.  She  exploits — always 
legitimately — her  own  affairs,  as  in  My  Creed,  the 
autobiographical  article  in  the  American  Magazine 
upon  which  we  have  drawn  so  heavily  in  this  sketch, 
and  The  Altar  of  Freedom,  an  account  of  her  struggle 
to  part  with  a  son  who  felt  he  must  answer  America's 
call  for  men  in  1917.  With  gusto  she  gives  us  the 


62    JHE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

account  of  a  vacation  trip— see  Through  Glacier  Park 
or  Tenting  To-Night.  With  the  heaviest  possible 
charge  of  sentiment  but  never  an  explosive  cap  of  senti 
mentality,  she  puts  before  us  a  small  boy,  the  crown 
prince  of  a  mythical  but  completely  real  kingdom, 
whose  pitifully  circumscribed  existence,  whose  scrapes 
and  friendships  and  admiration  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
have  for  their  background  court  intrigues  and  the  un 
covering  of  treason;  read  Long  Live  the  King!  With 
complete  self-knowledge  comes  complete  knowledge  of 
others;  Mrs.  Rinehart  can  go  straight  to  the  American 
heart  and  does  it  in  The  Amazing  Interlude,  that  story 
of  Sara  Lee  Kennedy,  who  went  from  a  Pennsylvania 
city  to  the  Belgian  front  to  make  soup  for  the  soldiers. 
Here  is  romance  so  heady  and  strong  that  most 
readers  overlook,  purposely  and  gladly,  the  improba 
bility  of  Henri's  return  to  Sara  Lee  and  the  little 
house  of  mercy  after  daybreak  discovered  him,  deliri 
ous  and  in  a  Belgian  uniform,  dangling  on  the  German 
wire.  Artistically  The  Amazing  Interlude  excels  by 
its  portrait  of  Harvey,  Sara  Lee's  fiance  back  home, 
Harvey  who  resisted  her  "call"  to  service,  who  brought 
her  back  home,  whose  hard  selfishness  as  an  American 
and  whose  lack  of  comprehension  as  a  man  make  him 
entirely  typical  of  thousands  in  this  country  prior  to 
April  6,  1917. 

The  novel  K. —  or  story  K.,  if  we  accept  Mrs.  Rine- 
hart's  disclaimer  as  to  novel  writing— is  possibly  more 
representative  of  her  work  than  any  other  single  book. 
It  illustrates  perfectly  her  ingenuity  in  contriving  and 
handling  a  plot;  for  the  book  ends  on  page  410  and 
the  most  necessary  revelation  does  not  come  until  page 


MARY  ROBERTS  RINEHART  63 

407.  It  exemplifies  her  finished  gift  for  telling  a  story ; 
there  are  no  wasted  words  and  in  half  a  page  she  can 
transport  you  from  laughter  to  tenderness.  Half  a 
page  ?  On  page  70  you  may  see  it  done  in  seven  lines. 
The  girl  Sidney  Page  has  slipped  from  a  rock  into  the 
river,  alighting  on  her  feet  and  standing  neck  deep. 
Rescued  by  K.  Le  Moyne,  she  remarks : 

"  'There  wasn't  any  danger,  really,  unless — unless 
the  river  had  risen.  ...  I  dare  say  I  shall  have  to  be 
washed  and  ironed.' 

"He  drew  her  cautiously  to  her  feet.  Her  wet 
skirts  clung  to  her;  her  shoes  were  sodden  and  heavy. 
She  clung  to  him  frantically,  her  eyes  on  the  river  be 
low.  With  the  touch  of  her  hands  the  man's  mirth 
died.  He  held  her  very  carefully,  very  tenderly,  as 
one  holds  something  infinitely  precious." 

K.  shows  its  author's  power  to  portray  character 
effectively  in  sweeping  outlines  filled  in,  on  occasion, 
with  solid  or  mottled  masses  of  color.  K.  himself  is 
the  kind  of  a  person  that  Mary  S.  Watts  might  have 
put  before  us  in  some  600  closely  printed  pages.  It 
is  a  difference  of  method  merely  and  while  not  every 
one  would  be  able  to  appreciate  the  thousand  little 
touches  with  which  Mrs.  Watts  drew  her  hero,  Mrs. 
Rinehart's  more  vigorous  delineation  is  effective  at  all 
distances,  in  all  lights,  with  almost  all  readers.  She 
manages  in  this  tale  to  present  a  wide  variety  of  per 
sons  and  a  great  range  of  emotions  and  she  manages 
it  less  by  atmospheric  details  and  a  single  setting — 
the  Street — than  by  an  astonishing  number  of  rela 
tionships  between  a  man  and  a  woman ;  or,  in  the  case 
of  Johnny,  "the  Rosenfeld  boy,"  and  Joe  Drummond, 


64     THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

a  youth  and  a  woman  or  girl.  It  will  be  worth  the 
reader's  while  to  note  that  the  story  contains  no  less 
than  ten  such  relationships.  First  there  are  K.  and 
Sidney  and  Joe  and  Sidney.  Then  there  are  Max  Wil 
son  and  Sidney,  Max  Wilson  and  Carlotta  Harrison, 
Tillie  and  Mr.  Schwitter,  Christine  Lorenz  and  Palm 
er  Howe,  Grace  Irving  and  Palmer  Howe,  Grace 
Irving  and  Johnny  Rosenfeld,  K.  and  Tillie  and  K. 
and  Christine.  This  is  very  complicated  and  unusual 
art — if  it  is  not  novelizing,  then  we  do  not  know  what 
novelizing  is.  Consider  the  gamut  run.  K.  and  Sid 
ney  are  the  ripe  lovers.  Joe's  unrequited  love  for  Sid 
ney  is  the  desperate  passion  of  immaturity.  Max  Wil 
son's  feeling  for  Sidney  is  the  infatuation  of  a  nature 
inherently  fickle  where  women  are  concerned.  Car 
lotta  Harrison's  love  for  Max  Wilson  is  the  dark  pas 
sion.  The  relation  between  Tillie  and  Schwitter  goes 
to  the  bedrock  of  human  instincts,  is  a  thing  Thomas 
Hardy  might  have  concerned  himself  with.  It  is  pa 
thetic;  he  would  have  made  it  tragic  as  well;  we  are 
satisfied  that  in  her  disposition  of  it  Mrs.  Rinehart  is 
sufficiently  faithful  to  the  truth  of  life.  Christine 
Lorenz  and  Palmer  Howe  are  the  disillusioned  mar 
ried;  but  in  this  case,  as  Christine  said:  "  'The  only 
difference  between  me -and  other  brides  is  that  I  know 
what  I'm  getting.  Most  of  them  do  not.' ' 

Grace  Irving  and  Palmer  Howe  bring  before  us  the 
man  and  the  woman  in  their  worst  relationship  in  the 
story,  or  in  life  either.  Grace  Irving  and  Johnny 
Rosenfeld  are  a  picture  of  thwarted  motherhood  and 
a  blind  feeling  for  justice.  K.  and  Tillie  are  proofs 
of  the  reach  of  friendship  and  the  efficacy  of  under- 


MARY  ROBERTS  RINEHART  65 

standing.  K.  and  Christine  give  us  the  woman  saved 
from  herself. 

The  height — or  the  depth — to  which  Mrs.  Rinehart 
attains  in  this  story  is  a  thing  to  marvel  at,  and  just 
as  marvelous  is  the  surety  with  which  she  gets  her 
distance.  The  tenth  chapter  of  K.  will  not  easily  be 
overmatched  in  American  fiction  or  that  of  any  other 
country.  Here  is  Mr.  Schwitter,  the  nurseryman, 
middle-aged  or  older,  not  very  articulate,  with  a  wife 
in  an  asylum  playing  with  paper  dolls;  and  here  is 
Tillie,  punching  meal  tickets  for  Mrs.  McKee,  not  be 
coming  younger,  lonelier  every  day,  suffering  heart 
aches  and  disappointment  without  end.  Mr.  Schwitter 
has  proposed  a  certain  thing. 

"Tillie  cowered  against  the  door,  her  eyes  on  his. 
Here  before  her,  embodied  in  this  man,  stood  all  that 
she  had  wanted  and  never  had.  He  meant  a  home, 
tenderness,  children,  perhaps.  He  turned  away  from 
the  look  in  her  eyes  and  stared  out  of  the  front  window. 

"  Them  poplars  out  there  ought  to  be  taken  away,' 
he  said  heavily.  'They're  hell  on  sewers.' ' 

"The  total  result  .  .  .  after  twelve  years  is  that  I 
have  learned  to  sit  down  at  my  desk  and  begin  work 
simultaneously,"  wrote  Mrs.  Rinehart  in  1917.  "One 
thing  died,  however,  in  those  years  of  readjustment 
and  struggle.  That  was  my  belief  in  what  is  called 
'inspiration/  I  think  I  had  it  now  and  then  in  those 
days,  moments  when  I  felt  things  I  had  hardly  words 
for,  a  breath  of  something  much  bigger  than  I  was,  a 
little  lift  in  the  veil. 

"It  does  not  come  any  more. 


66    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

"Other  things  bothered  me  in  those  first  early  days. 
I  seemed  to  have  so  many  things  to  write  about,  and 
writing  was  so  difficult  Ideas  came,  but  no  words  to 
clothe  them.  Now,  when  writing  is  easy,  when  the 
technique  of  my  work  bothers  me  no  more  than  the 
pen  I  write  with,  I  have  less  to  say. 

"I  have  words,  but  fewer  ideas  to  clothe  in  them. 
And,  coming  more  and  more  often  is  the  feeling  that, 
before  I  have  commenced  to  do  real  work,'  I  am  written 
out;  that  I  have  for  years  wasted  my  substance  in 
riotous  writing,  and  that  now,  when  my  chance  is  here, 
when  I  have  lived  and  adventured,  when,  if  ever,  I  am 
to  record  honestly  my  little  page  of  these  great  times 
in  which  I  live,  now  I  shall  fail." 

If  her  readers  shared  this  feeling  they  must  have 
murmured  to  themselves  as  they  turned  the  absorbing 
pages  of  The  Amazing  Interlude:  "How  absurd!"  It  is 
doubtful  if  they  recalled  her  spoken  misgiving  at  all. 

BOOKS  BY  MARY  ROBERTS  RINEHART 

The  Circular  Staircase,  1908. 

The  Man  in  Lower  Ten,  1909. 

When  a  Man  Marries,  1909. 

The  Window  at  the  White  Cat,  1910. 

The  Amazing  Adventures  of  Letitia  Carberry,  1911. 

Where  There's  a  Will,  1912. 

The  Case  of  Jenny  Brice,  1913. 

The  After  House,  1914. 

The  Street  of  Seven  Stars,  1914. 

K.,  1915. 

Through  Glacier  Park. 


MARY  ROBERTS  RINEHART  67 

Tish,  1916. 

The  Altar  of  Freedom,  1917. 

Long  Live  the  King!  1917* 

Tenting  To-Night,  1918. 

Bab,  a  Sub-Deb. 

Kings,  Queens  and  Pawns,  1915. 

The  Amazing  Interlude,  1918. 

Twenty-Three  and  a  Half  Hours'  Leave,  1919. 

Dangerous  Days,  1919. 

The  first  seven  were  published  by  the  Bobbs-Merrill 
Company,  Indianapolis;  the  next  eight  by  Houghton 
MiMin  Company,  Boston;  the  last  five  by  the  George 
H.  Doran  Company,  New  York. 


CHAPTER  VI 

KATHLEEN   NORRIS 

MRS.  NORRIS,"  explains  William  Dean 
Howells,  "puts  the  problem,  or  the  fact,  or 
the  trait  before  you  by  quick,  vivid  touches 
of  portraiture  or  action.  If  she  lacks  the  final  touch 
of  Frank  Norris's  power,  she  has  the  compensating 
gift  of  a  more  controlled  and  concentrated  observa 
tion.  She  has  the  secret  of  closely  adding  detail  to 
detail  in  a  triumph  of  what  another  California  author 
has  called  Littleism,  but  what  seems  to  be  nature's 
way  of  achieving  Largeism." 

Of  course,  this  is  the  method  of  Kathleen  Norris, 
the  method  in  her  madness,  to  use  the  word  madness 
in  its  old  sense  of  being  possessed  by  something.  What 
is  Mrs.  Norris  possessed  by?  Why,  the  irresistible 
impulse  to  put  things  before  you  and  make  you  con 
sider  whether  they  should  be  so.  H'm,  a  preacher 
might  do  that.  Well,  had  most  preachers  the  pre- 
sentative  skill  of  Kathleen  Norris  there  would  be  ticket 
speculators  on  the  sidewalks  in  front  of  their  taber 
nacles  ! 

If  you  want  to  make  people  think  write  a  novel — 
but  be  sure  you  know  how !  Mrs.  Norris  does.  Why, 
is  easily  answered.  She  was  not  a  newspaper  re 
porter  for  nothing.  Newspaper  training  does  incul 
cate  "a  taste  exact  for  faultless  fact"  that  "amounts 

68 


KATHLEEN  NORRIS  69 

to  a  disease,"  quite  as  the  lilting  lines  in  The  Mikado 
have  it.  The  fiction  of  Kathleen  Norris  is  distin 
guished  by  several  unusual  qualities,  all  due,  in  the 
present  writer's  opinion,  to  newspaper  training  oper 
ating  upon  a  gifted  and  observant  mind: 

As  in  a  good  piece  of  reporting,  a  single  important 
idea  or  fact  or  problem  is  at  the  bottom  of  each  of 
her  novels. 

Each  story  is  first  of  all  a  story,  the  crisp,  pene 
trative  account  of  certain  persons  and  events. 

Mrs.  Norris  never  appears  to  have  taken  her  fact 
or  idea  or  problem  and  said,  "I  will  build  a  tale  about 
this."  She  seems  always  to  be  describing  actual  people 
and  actual  occurrences.  This  seeming  may  be  de 
ceptive.  It  may  be  that  she  goes  about  it  the  other 
way,  proceeding  from  her  idea  to  her  people  and 
incidents.  If  she  does,  the  trail  is  covered  perfectly. 
For  the  reader  gets  the  sensation  first  of  persons  and 
"doings"  and  then,  later,  of  problems  arising  from 
their  relations  to  each  other;  which  is  the  precise  and 
invariable  effect  life  itself  always  gives  us.  We  do 
not  think  of  the  problem  of  divorce  first  and  of  our 
neighbors,  John  Doe  and  Cora  Doe,  afterward;  we 
see  Cora  Doe  going  past  the  house  and  recall  when 
John  Doe  was  last  in  town  and  then,  and  not  until 
then,  do  we  think  of  the  tragedy  of  their  lives  and 
the  dreadful  question  mark  coiled  in  the  center  of  it. 

In  other  words,  life  assimilates  all  its  great  facts 
and  problems  and  the  novelist  who  would  set  them 
forth  effectively  must  first  have  assimilated  them  too, 
so  that  they  will  not  have  to  be  "brought  in"  the  story 
he  is  telling,  but  will  be  in  it  from  the  beginning,  dis- 


70    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

closing  themselves  as  the  action  develops.  The  reader 
must  feel  that  he  has  discovered  the  fact  or  the  prob 
lem  for  himself,  that  he,  all  by  himself,  has  abstracted 
it  out  of  the  scenes  put  before  him.  He  must  see 
Cora  Doe  go  by  and  hear  of  John  Doe's  last  appear 
ance  and  look  upon  the  wreck  of  their  lives — but  all 
the  rest  must  be  left  to  him  to  grasp  unaided!  The 
real  reason  why  no  story  can  have  a  moral  is  that 
every  reader  must  find  his  own  moral,  even  if  each 
finds  the  same  one! 

Mrs.  Norris  understands  this  and  practices  it.  She 
does  not  ask  you  to  consider  whether  a  girl,  bred  in 
sordid  surroundings  and  having  access  in  youth  only 
to  tawdry  ideals,  can  lift  herself  to  gentleness  and 
dignity  and  become,  at  any  cost,  the  captain  of  her 
soul.  No!  She  makes  you  acquainted  with  Julia 
Page.  She  refrains  from  questioning  the  efficacy  of 
divorce  and  writes  The  Heart  of  Rachael,  which 
makes  every  reader  ask  himself  the  question.  If  her 
readers  unite  in  an  identical  answer  and  that  answer 
is  the  one  Mrs.  Norris  herself  would  return,  does  that 
convict  her  of  stepping  outside  the  novelist's  province  ? 
Bless  you,  no;  the  novelist's  province  is  as  large  as 
life  is,  and  its  boundaries  in  the  case  of  any  given 
writer  as  far  as  he  can  carry  and  maintain  them.  Mrs. 
Norris' s  frontiers  are  wide. 

The  woman  first.  An  interesting  article  in  the  Book 
News  Monthly  several  years  ago  posited  that  "Kath 
leen  Norris  upsets  all  our  accepted  ideas  of  how  a 
novelist  is  made.  .  .  .  With  the  exception  of  five 
months  spent  in  taking  a  literary  course  at  the  Uni 
versity  of  California,  Mrs.  Norris  never  had  any 


KATHLEEN  NORRIS  71 

schooling,  and,  until  five  years  ago  (1908),  she  never 
had  been  outside  her  native  State.  .  .  .  No  thrilling 
adventures,  no  prairie  life,  or  mountaineering,  no  ex 
periences  of  travel,  or  residence  in  Paris  or  Berlin, 
have  been  hers."  The  impression  of  wonder  which  this 
may  create  will  be  somewhat  modified  by  the  sketch 
of  her  life  which  follows,  and  for  which  we  are 
chiefly  indebted  to  the  same  article. 

Kathleen  Norris  was  the  daughter  of  James  A. 
Thompson,  of  San  Francisco.  The  father  was  a  San 
Franciscan  of  long  residence  and  twice  served  as  presi 
dent  of  the  famous  Bohemian  Club.  At  the  time  of 
his  death  he  was  manager  of  the  Donohoe-Kelly  Bank. 
Kathleen  was  the  second  child  in  a  family  of  six — 
three  boys  and  three  girls.  Mr.  Thompson  would  not 
send  his  children  to  school  and  they  were  taught  at 
home,  with  an  occasional  governess  for  language  study. 
In  1899  the  family  moved  to  Mill  Valley  across  San 
Francisco  Bay,  and  "Treehaven,"  a  bungalow  in  the 
beautiful  valley  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Tamalpais,  be 
came  the  home.  A  quieter  life  can  hardly  be  imagined. 
There  weren't  many  neighbors,  the  children  did  not  go 
to  school,  most  of  the  visitors  were  grown  people,  there 
were  no  children's  parties.  Kathleen  Norris  never  saw 
the  inside  of  a  theater  until  she  was  sixteen,  which 
will  astonish  readers  of  The  Story  of  Julia  Page. 
There  was,  however,  a  large  library,  there  were  plenty 
of  magazines,  there  were  miles  of  forest  as  a  play 
ground,  there  were  horses,  cows,  dogs,  cats,  a  garden. 
Mountains  were  there  to  be  climbed  and  creeks  to  be 
waded.  "The  boys  as  well  as  the  girls  of  the  family 
all  became  practical  cooks." 


72     THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

Kathleen  was  the  oldest  girl.  At  nineteen  she  was 
to  "come  out"  in  San  Francisco.  A  house  had  been 
taken  in  the  city  for  the  winter.  Gowns  had  been 
ordered  and  "the  cotillions  joined"  when  Mrs.  Thomp 
son  was  stricken  with  pneumonia  and  died.  Her  hus 
band  died,  broken-hearted,  in  less  than  a  month  after 
ward.  Misfortunes  culminating  just  after  the  father's 
death  left  the  six  children  "destitute,  with  the  excep 
tion  of  the  family  home  in  Mill  Valley,  too  large  and 
too  far  from  the  city  to  be  a  negotiable  asset." 

The  children  had  never  known  what  it  was  to  want 
money.  They  behaved  bravely.  The  oldest  boy  already 
had  a  small  job.  Kathleen  got  work  at  once  with  a 
hardware  house  at  $30  a  month.  Her  1 5-year-old 
sister  took  three  pupils  "whose  fees  barely  paid  for 
her  commutation  ticket  and  carfares.  The  total  of 
the  little  family's  income  was  about  $80  a  month. 
Their  one  terror — never  realized — was  of  debt." 

Kathleen  and  her  sister  came  home  from  the  day's 
work  to  get  the  dinner,  make  beds,  wash  dishes  and 
scrub  the  kitchen  floor  at  midnight.  Kathleen,  who 
had  been  a  favorite  story-teller  all  her  life,  began  to 
wonder  if  she  could  not  make  money  by  writing.  Her 
tales  as  a  child  had  generally  been  illustrated  with 
little  pen  drawings  of  girls  with  pigtails,  girls  in  check 
ered  aprons,  girls  in  fancy  dress,  "and  occasionally 
with  more  tragic  pictures,  such  as  widows  and  be 
reaved  mothers  mourning  beside  their  departed.  .  .  . 
There  is  a  scrapbook  in  the  family  in  which  are  pasted 
more  than  1,000  of  these  sketches."  Now  she  was  not 
thinking  of  illustrating  stories,  her  own  or  others',  but 
of  making  needed  money.  In  the  fall  of  1903  she  had 


KATHLEEN  NORRIS  73 

attempted  to  take  a  year's  course  in  the  English  de 
partment  of  the  University  of  California  and  had  had 
to  give  it  up  because  the  family  needed  her.  In  1904,  at 
the  age  of  twenty-three,  she  made  her  first  success 
ful  effort.  The  San  Francisco  Argonaut  paid  her 
$15.50  for  a  story  called  The  Colonel  and  the  Lady. 
Mrs.  Norris  was  then  librarian  in  the  Mechanics'  Li 
brary  and  had  more  time  to  try  writing.  Such  success 
as  she  had  was  not  very  encouraging.  She  left  the 
library  to  go  into  settlement  work,  and  for  several 
months  strove  "to  reanimate  an  already  defunct  settle 
ment  house."  She  got  her  feet  on  the  right  path  at 
last  by  becoming  society  editor  of  the  San  Francisco 
Evening  Bulletin.  A  few  months  later  she  became  a 
reporter  for  the  San  Francisco  Call,  where  she  worked 
for  two  years. 

"Mrs.  Norris  doesn't  know  whether  the  newspaper 
experience  helped  or  hindered  her  in  her  literary 
work."  There  need  be  no  uncertainty,  we  should 
think,  when,  as  we  are  told  in  the  next  breath,  "during 
these  years  she  saw  many  phases  of  life  that  must 
have  enlarged  her  vision  and  made  her  more  catholic 
in  her  views."  She  learned  to  write  with  speed.  "Dur 
ing  the  visit  of  the  Atlantic  fleet  to  Pacific  waters,  in 
1908,  there  was  one  day  in  which  8,000  words  were 
Mrs.  Norris's  contribution  to  the  paper."  This  may 
explain  why  she  is  one  of  the  most  prolific  of  Ameri 
can  novelists.  Long  before  Josselyn's  Wife  could  be 
brought  out  in  the  fall  of  1918,  Sisters  had  begun  to 
be  published  serially. 

In  April,  1909,  Kathleen  Thompson  was  married  to 
Charles  Oilman  Norris,  younger  brother  of  Frank 


74    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

Norris,  the  author  of  McTeague  and  The  Pit.  Charles 
Norris,  now  Capt.  Charles  Norris,  U.  S.  A.,  is  himself 
a  novelist,  the  author  of  The  Amateur  and  Salt:  The 
Education  of  Griffith  Adams.  Captain  and  Mrs.  Nor 
ris,  whose  home  is  at  Port  Washington,  Long  Island, 
New  York,  have  a  son  named  after  his  distinguished 
uncle,  Frank  Norris. 

Marriage,  a  home  in  New  York  City,  and  the  first 
leisure  since  her  father's  death;  a  literary  atmosphere 
(her  husband  was  in  magazine  editorial  work),  and 
the  happiness  of  being  in  the  city  she  had  for  years 
longed  to  know — these  are  the  circumstances  which 
reawakened  Mrs.  Norris's  ambition  to  write.  She 
essayed  again  without  encouragement  from  editors  ex 
cept  the  editor  at  the  breakfast  table.  Her  newspaper 
training  now  seemed  to  handicap  her,  "her  fiction 
lacked  the  simplicity  and  the  appeal  that  have  since 
endeared  it  to  so  many  readers."  For  months  she 
got  nothing  but  rejections.  Finally  this  note  popped 
out  of  the  mail : 

"Dear  Mrs.  Norris : 

"The  readers  report  that,  delightful  as  this  story  is, 
it  is  'not  quite  in  our  tone.'  The  feeling  of  the  At 
lantic  is,  that  when  a  tale  is  as  intimately  true  to  life 
as  this  is  of  yours,  the  tone  is  surely  a  tone  for  the 
Atlantic  to  adopt. 

"It  gives  us  much  pleasure  to  accept  so  admirable 
a  story. 

"Very  truly  yours, 

"THE  EDITOR," 


KATHLEEN  NORRIS  75 

The  story  that  was  "not  quite  in  our  tone"  but  that 
so  impressed  Ellery  Sedgwick,  editor  of  the  Atlantic 
Monthly,  was  What  Happened  to  Alanna.  On  its  pub 
lication  S.  S.  McClure  wrote  to  Mrs.  Norris  asking 
for  her  next  work.  She  replied,  giving  him  the  date 
on  which  What  Happened  to  Alanna  had  been  sub 
mitted  to  McClure' s  Magazine  and  the  date  on  which  it 
had  been  returned  to  her. 

Her  next  six  stories  appeared  in  McClure' s.  After 
that  it  seemed  to  the  casual  observer  as  if  they  were 
everywhere.  In  one  month  Mrs.  Norris  was  on  five 
tables  of  contents. 

And  then  the  Delineator  offered  a  prize  for  a  story 
of  not  more  than  3,000  words.  Mrs.  Norris  began 
one,  and  when  she  saw  that  it  would  run  to  10,000 
words,  she  laid  it  aside  and  wrote  another.  So  the 
Delineator  lost  and  the  American  Magazine  gained 
Mother.  On  the  story's  appearance  five  publishers 
asked  Mrs.  Norris  to  enlarge  it  sufficiently  to  make 
a  book. 

Enlarging  short  stories  into  novels  is  a  ticklish  busi 
ness.  Successes  are  few.  Mrs.  Norris  added  20,000 
words  to  her  short  story.  How  well  she  did  it  is  evi 
denced  by  the  dozens  of  editions  through  which  the 
book  has  run  and  more  remarkably  by  the  fact  that 
Edward  Bok,  editor  of  the  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  paid 
a  high  price  for  the  privilege  of  running  the  novel 
as  a  serial  after  its  publication  as  a  book.  This  is 
apparently  a  unique  instance. 

Mother  was  followed  by  The  Rich  Mrs.  Burgoyne, 
the  story  of  a  great-hearted  woman  who  brought  her 
fresh  and  honest  ideals  into  the  heart  of  a  narrow 


;6     THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

Western  city.  Those  who  read  it  may  excusably  gasp 
to  hear  that  it  was  written  in  six  weeks  on  an  order 
from  the  Woman's  Home  Companion.  Poor  Dear 
Margaret  Kirby,  collected  short  stories,  was  the  third 
book,  appearing  in  the  spring  of  1913.  The  Treasure 
had  had  serial  publication  in  the  Saturday  Evening 
Post.  Saturday's  Child  preceded  it.  And  then  Mrs. 
Norris  made  her  first  great  success  with  a  full  length 
novel  which  many  will  consider  the  biggest  book  she 
has  done.  It  was  The  Story  of  Julia  Page,  the  first 
of  three  novels  which  have  been  called  Mrs.  Norris's 
trilogy  of  American  womanhood.  The  others  are  The 
Heart  of  Rachael  and  Martie,  the  Unconquercd.  Be 
tween  these  last  two  appeared  her  short  novel,  Under 
tow,  dealing  with  two  young  married  spendthrifts. 
Josselyn's  Wife,  "the  story  of  a  woman's  faith,"  tells 
of  a  sweet,  simple  girl,  Ellen  Latimer,  transported  by 
a  whirlwind  marriage  to  Gibbs  Josselyn  from  the 
humdrum  existence  of  a  small  country  town  to  the 
luxuries  of  the  wealthy  social  life  of  New  York.  There 
is  a  time  when  the  young  second  wife  of  Gibbs  Jos 
selyn's  father  threatens  to  break  up  the  happiness  of 
the  younger  Josselyn  and  Ellen,  for  Gibbs  succumbs 
readily  to  her  undeniable  fascination.  Then  comes 
the  crash.  Through  the  long  agony  of  a  murder  trial 
it  is  the  wife  he  has  neglected  who  alone  upholds  him. 
It  is  her  faith  that  wins  and  that  brings  him  at  last 
to  an  understanding  of  his  egotistical  folly. 

Mrs.  Norris  is  not  yet  at  the  height  and  fullness  of 
her  powers,  as  well  as  can  be  judged  contemporane 
ously.  It  is  easy  enough  to  look  back  on  the  com 
pleted  work  of  a  writer's  lifetime  and  say,  "Here  he 


KATHLEEN  NORRIS  77 

reached  his  apex,  here  he  began  to  decline,  here  he  rose 
again  for  an  hour."  But  to  estimate  the  present  and 
relate  it  tentatively  to  the  future  is  very  much  harder. 
Mother  was  one  "peak"  in  the  graph  of  Mrs.  Norris's 
progress,  The  Story  of  Julia  Page  was  another  and  a 
higher,  Josselyris  Wife  is  at  least  as  high.  There  is 
every  prospect  that  in  the  active  and  happy  years  we 
may  hope  are  ahead  of  her,  Kathleen  Norris  will  excel 
the  impressive  novels  she  has  already  given  us. 

BOOKS  BY  KATHLEEN  NORRIS 

Mother,  1911. 

The  Rich  Mrs.  Burgoyne,  1912. 

Poor  Dear  Margaret  Kirby,  1913. 

Saturday's  Child,  1914. 

The  Treasure,  1915. 

The  Story  of  Julia  Page,  1915. 

The  Heart  of  Rachael,  1916. 

Undertow,  1917. 

Martie,  the  Unconquered,  1917. 

Josselyn's  Wife,  1918. 

These   novels   by   Mrs.   Norris   are   published   by 
Doubleday,  Page  &  Company,  New  York. 


CHAPTER  VII 

MARGARET  DELANO 

EDITH  WHARTON,  at  56,  does  a  work  of 
mercy  in  France;  Margaret  Deland  is  similarly 
engaged  at  61.     That  speaks  so  much  more 
loudly  than  their  books.     And  their  books  are  not 
silent. 

If  the  band  of  a  kiltie  regiment  plays  The  Camp 
bells  Are  Coming,  one  of  them  may  be  Margaretta 
Wade  (Campbell)  Deland.  Mrs.  Deland  was  born  in 
Alleghany,  Pennsylvania,  February  23,  1857.  Her  par 
ents  died  while  she  was  very  young,  and  she  was 
reared  in  the  family  of  an  uncle,  Benjamin  Campbell, 
who  lived  in  Manchester,  then  a  suburb  of  Alleghany, 
and  the  original  Old  Chester  of  Mrs.  Deland's  famous 
and  loved  stories. 

"Our  home,"  Mrs.  Deland  once  wrote,  "was  a  great, 
old-fashioned  country  house,  built  by  English  people 
among  the  hills  of  western  Pennsylvania  more  than  a 
century  ago.  There  was  a  stiff,  prim  garden,  with 
box  hedges  and  closely  clipped  evergreens.  In  front 
of  the  garden  were  terraces,  and  then  meadows  stretch 
ing  down  to  the  Ohio  River,  which  bent  like  a  shining 
arm  about  the  circle  of  the  western  hills." 

"Which  bent  like  a  shining  arm  about  the  circle  of 
the  western  hills !"  Beautiful  simile ! 

78 


MARGARET  DELAND  79 

In  this  old  garden  the  little  girl  played  the  greater 
part  of  her  waking  hours.  She  loved  the  outdoors. 
She  was  highly  impressionable  and  imaginative.  She 
had  the  curious  and  dear  convictions  of  childhood. 
She  was  sure  that  the  whole  of  Asia  was  a  yellow 
land,  because  the  map  of  Asia  in  her  old  dog-eared 
geography  was  colored  yellow. 

Her  first  taste  in  reading  was  formed  upon  Ivanhoe 
and  The  Talisman  and  Tales  of  a  Grandfather,  Haw 
thorne's  stories,  and  the  works  of  Washington  Irving. 
Her  first  and  indeed  her  final  experience  of  life  was 
that  summed  up  in  Stevenson's  saying:  "And  the 
greatest  adventures  are  not  those  we  go  to  seek."  Mrs. 
Deland  expressed  it  this  way:  "Not  the  prominent 
events ;  nor  the  catastrophes,  nor  the  very  great  pleas 
ures;  not  the  journeys  nor  the  deprivations,  but  the 
commonplaces  of  everyday  life  determine  what  a  child 
shall  do,  and  still  more  positively  determine  what  he 
shall  be." 

In  one  word:  character.  And  it  is  with  character 
almost  solely  that  Mrs.  Deland  as  a  writer  has  been 
preoccupied.  Dr.  Lavendar  is  a  study  in  character, 
so  is  Helena  Richie,  so  is  the  Iron  Woman;  and  the 
young  people  that  surround  her  are  character  studies 
of  a  completeness  unexcelled  in  American  fiction. 

There  is  more  than  one  way  of  dealing  with  char 
acter  in  fiction.  But  first  we  must  settle  what  we 
mean  by  character.  We  mean,  concisely,  inherited 
traits  as  affected  by  environment.  Environment  in 
cludes  people  as  well  as  things. 

It  is  impossible  to  make  a  character  study  convinc 
ing  without  taking  heredity  into  account,  and  this 


8o    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

irrespective  of  whether  heredity  or  environment  plays 
the  greater  role  in  a  mortal's  life.  The  eternal  con 
troversy  as  to  which  of  these  two  influences  is  pre 
ponderant  is  largely  futile  because  the  preponderance 
differs  with  various  persons,  differs  with  the  traits  in 
herited,  differs  with  a  thousand  differing  pressures  of 
circumstance.  One  thing  is  certain :  whether  anything 
is  known  about  an  individual's  inherited  endowment 
or  not  we  always  and  inescapably  assume  that  he  has 
one.  The  best  handy  illustration  of  this  is  Jennie 
Gushing  in  Mary  S.  Watts' s  book,  The  Rise  of  Jennie 
Cushing.  Nothing  whatever  is  known  by  us  regard 
ing  Jennie  Cushing's  inheritance;  we  don't  know  her 
parentage  any  more  than  she  does.  Her  environment 
we  know  with  awful  exactitude  and  we  are  perfectly 
conscious  that  it  fails  utterly  to  explain  her  except,  of 
course,  her  marvelous  and  painfully  acquired  gift  of 
reticence.  We  are  forced,  therefore,  to  presuppose  in 
her  case  an  inheritance  of  extraordinary  will-power  and 
extraordinary  sensitiveness  to  beauty  in  any  of  its 
forms.  And  we  do  presuppose  it!  It  makes  her 
wholly  credible;  more  credible,  probably,  than  any 
careful  account  of  her  forebears  could  have  made  her. 
Now  in  The  Iron  Woman,  indisputably  Mrs.  De- 
land's  finest  story,  we  get  both  heredity  and  environ 
ment  exactly  known  and  precisely  compounded.  In 
deed,  if  Mrs.  Deland's  great  novel  has  a  fault  it  is  the 
fault  of  giving  us  more  knowledge  than  should  be 
ours.  Her  people  are  so  complete  that  there  is  no 
unknown  quantity  in  the  equation  they  make.  It  is 
just  a  trifle  too  good  to  be  true,  too  life-like  to  be  con 
vincing.  Knowing  to  the  last  inch  what  they  are  (as 


MARGARET  DELAND  81 

we  know  our  neighbors  of  long  standing)  we  know 
to  the  last  degree  what  they  will  do,  under  what  cir 
cumstances  they  will  do  it,  how  they  will  do  it  and 
what  the  result  upon  them  and  upon  others,  just  as 
minutely  known,  will  be.  To  see  Sarah  Maitland  and 
the  boy  Blair  is  like  watching  a  terrible  and  inevitable 
and  perfectly  anticipated  tragedy  approaching  in  the 
house  next  door.  Listen : 

"But  after  a  breathless  six  months  of  partnership — 
in  business,  if  in  nothing  else — Herbert  Maitland,  leav 
ing  behind  him  his  little  two-year-old  Nannie,  and  an 
unborn  boy  of  whose  approaching  advent  he  was  ig 
norant,  got  out  of  the  world  as  expeditiously  as  con 
sumption  could  take  him.  Indeed,  his  wife  had  so 
jostled  him  and  deafened  him  and  dazed  him  that 
there  was  nothing  for  him  to  do  but  die — so  that 
there  might  be  room  for  her  expanding  energy.  Yet 
she  loved  him;  nobody  who  saw  her  in  those  first 
silent,  agonized  months  could  doubt  that  she  loved  him. 
Her  pain  expressed  itself,  not  in  moans  or  tears  or 
physical  prostration,  but  in  work.  Work,  which  had 
been  an  interest,  became  a  refuge.  Under  like  cir 
cumstances  some  people  take  to  religion  and  some  to 
drink;  as  Mrs.  Maitland's  religion  had  never  been 
more  than  church-going  and  contributions  to  foreign 
missions,  it  was,  of  course,  no  help  under  the  strain 
of  grief;  and  as  her  temperament  did  not  dictate  the 
other  means  of  consolation,  she  turned  to  work.  She 
worked  herself  numb;  very  likely  she  had  hours  when 
she  did  not  feel  her  loss.  But  she  did  not  feel  any 
thing  else.  Not  even  her  baby's  little  clinging  hands, 
or  his  milky  lips  at  her  breast.  She  did  her  duty  by 


82    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

him;  she  hired  a  reliable  woman  to  take  charge  of 
him,  and  she  was  careful  to  appear  at  regular  hours  to 
nurse  him.  She  ordered  toys  for  him,  and  as  she 
shared  the  naive  conviction  of  her  day  that  church- 
going  and  religion  were  synonymous,  she  began,  when 
he  was  four  years  old,  to  take  him  to  church.  In  her 
shiny,  shabby  black  silk,  which  had  been  her  Sunday 
costume  ever  since  it  had  been  purchased  as  part  of 
her  curiously  limited  trousseau,  she  sat  in  a  front  pew, 
between  the  two  children,  and  felt  that  she  was  doing 
her  duty  to  both  of  them.  A  sense  of  duty  without 
maternal  instinct  is  not,  perhaps,  as  baleful  a  thing 
as  maternal  instinct  without  a  sense  of  duty,  but  it  is 
sterile;  and  in  the  first  few  years  of  her  bereavement, 
the  big,  suffering  woman  seemed  to  have  nothing  but 
duty  to  offer  to  her  child.  Nannie's  puzzles  began 
then.  'Why  don't  Mamma  hug  my  baby  brother  ?'  she 
used  to  ask  the  nurse,  who  had  no  explanation  to  offer. 
The  baby  brother  was  ready  enough  to  hug  Nannie, 
and  his  eager,  wet  little  kisses  on  her  rosy  cheeks  sealed 
her  to  his  service  while  he  was  still  in  petticoats. 

"Blair  was  three  years  old  before,  under  the  long 
atrophy  of  grief,  Sarah  Maitland's  maternal  instinct 
began  to  stir.  When  it  did,  she  was  chilled  by  the 
boy's  shrinking  from  her  as  if  from  a  stranger;  she 
was  chilled,  too,  by  another  sort  of  repulsion,  which 
with  the  hideous  candor  of  childhood  he  made  no 
effort  to  conceal.  One  of  his  first  expressions  of 
opinion  had  been  contained  in  the  single  word  'uggy,' 
accompanied  by  a  finger  pointed  at  his  mother.  When 
ever  she  sneezed — and  she  was  one  of  those  people 
who  cannot,  or  do  not,  moderate  a  sneeze — Blair  had 


MARGARET  DELAND  83 

a  nervous  paroxysm.  He  would  jump  at  the  unex 
pected  sound,  then  burst  into  furious  tears.  When 
she  tried  to  draw  his  head  down  upon  her  scratchy 
black  alpaca  breast,  he  would  say  violently,  'No,  no! 
No,  no!'  at  which  she  would  push  him  roughly  from 
her  knee  and  fall  into  hurt  silence.  .  .  .  She  took 
Blair's  little  chin  in  her  hand — a  big,  beautiful,  power 
ful  hand,  with  broken  and  blackened  nails — and  turn 
ing  his  wincing  face  up,  rubbed  her  cheek  roughly 
against  his.  'Get  over  your  airs!'  she  said." 

It  is,  we  repeat,  exactly  like  living  next  door  to  the 
family  and,  with  the  procession  of  the  years,  collecting 
innumerable  little  incidents  and  observed  facts  all  piec 
ing  accurately  together.  It  is  not  fiction  at  all,  it  is 
biography,  the  best  and  brightest  and  most  instructive 
kind  of  biography.  What  is  the  difference  between 
fiction  and  biography?  Principally  it  consists  only  in 
this,  that  in  the  case  of  the  life  of  an  actual  man  the 
biographer  is  under  no  necessity  of  explaining  or  rec 
onciling  his  apparent  contradictions.  We  know  the 
man  lived  and  that  he  was  capable  of  those  contra 
dictions.  If  the  biographer  can  reconcile  or  explain 
them,  offering  an  acceptable  and  plausible  theory  to 
account  for  them,  very  well;  we  are  grateful.  But  it 
is  not  imperative  that  he  should  do  so;  what  is  im 
perative  is  that  he  should  set  down  a  faithful  record 
of  the  contradictions  themselves;  for  we  can  then, 
having  the  evidence  before  us,  frame  our  own  theories 
to  account  for  them. 

In  writing  fiction  or  fictional  biography  the  author's 
main  struggle  is  for  plausibility.  If  his  character  does 
perplexing  and  contradictory  things  the  author  feels 


84    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

that  he  must  make  them  entirely  understandable  or  we 
will  not  accept  the  character — and  in  this  he  is  gen 
erally  right.  Human  nature  is  human  nature ;  what  we 
take  at  the  hands  of  life  we  are  forced  to  take  and 
make  the  best  of;  but  we  won't  take  the  same  things 
from  a  novel  because  we  aren't  compelled  to.  We  in 
sist  that  the  novelist  make  everything  clear  and  under 
this  great  compulsion  the  novelist  is  always  working. 
The  result  is  not  always  happy.  Compulsions,  how 
ever  desirable  in  general,  remain  laws  of  force.  Com 
pulsory  education — compulsory  fiction ;  there  are  cases 
where  both  work  badly,  where  both  do  serious  ill. 

Considered  as  fiction,  The  Iron  Woman  is  vitiated 
ever  so  slightly  -by  the  painful  consciousness  that  we 
have  required  every  person  in  it  to  be  explained  to 
us  too  fully,  a  requirement  to  which  Mrs.  Deland  has 
obediently  conformed.  No  mystery,  no  magic  of  the 
unknown,  invests  the  story.  We  have  only  to  watch 
these  people  take  their  appointed  courses  to  an  ap 
pointed  end.  We  read  eagerly  and  with  a  sense  of 
uncertainty  not  as  to  what  the  outcome  will  be,  but 
as  to  whether  Mrs.  Deland  will  dare,  will  dare,  to 
break  the  law  of  the  fictioneer.  She  does  not,  and 
thereby  throws  her  book  over  into  the  field  of  biog 
raphy.  What,  you  say,  did  these  people  actually  live  ? 
Of  course  they  lived.  If  you  mean,  were  there  orig 
inals  for  all  of  them?  we  cannot  say.  Probably  there 
were.  But  you  must  remember  that  the  novelist  who 
works  from  an  original,  a  living  person,  hardly  ever 
takes  that  person  as  he  is.  Usually  some  addition  and 
subtraction  goes  on.  Without  doubt  this  was  the  case 
here.  When  we  speak  of  The  Iron  Woman  as  biog- 


MARGARET  DELAND  85 

raphy,  the  best  and  brightest  of  biography,  we  mean 
simply  this :  The  studies  of  the  people  in  it  are  too 
minute  for  fiction  and  the  people  themselves  are  over- 
plausible.  The  writer's  effort  to  make  them  plausible 
has  gone  so  far  and  been  so  successful  as  to  defeat 
her  end.  The  wealth  of  detail  with  which  she  en 
riches  her  splendid  story  makes  it  a  biography,  or  a 
cluster  of  biographies;  and  considered  as  biographies, 
these  people  are  a  vivid  success,  and  all  that  extreme 
plausibility  we  have  noted,  all  that  conscientious  dove 
tailing  of  traits  and  circumstance,  falls  lightly  and 
easily  and  beautifully  into  place  as  the  brilliant  and 
convincing  effort  of  a  biographer  to  explain  her  people, 
reconcile  their  self-contradictions,  put  them  in  the  right 
light  before  the  world,  in  the  light  in  which  they  saw 
themselves  and  in  which  they  saw  each  other. 

We  are  not  trying  to  be  ingenious  nor  to  find  in 
Mrs.  Deland's  work  something  which  is  not  there. 
We  have  no  patience  with  artificiality  in  dealing  with 
these  matters.  We  are  simply  trying  to  account  for 
the  feeling  that  sweeps  over  us  as  we  re-read  The  Iron 
Woman,  a  feeling  which  we  believe  most  of  those  who 
re-read  the  book  will  share.  And  we  venture  to  think 
that  in  this  attempt  to  solve  our  feeling  about  Mrs. 
Deland's  biggest  novel  we  have  solved  the  peculiarity 
of  all  her  exquisite  work.  She  is  the  ideal  biographer. 
As  supporting  evidence  to  the  case  we  have  made  (we 
hope  it  is  a  decent  case)  we  call  attention  to  her  Old 
Chester  books  and  stories.  In  The  Awakening  of 
Helena  Richie,  in  Old  Chester  Tales,  in  Dr.  Lavendar's 
People — in  them  all,  in  all  her  work — we  believe  that 


86    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

the  reader  who  takes  the  biographical  standpoint  will 
find  the  fullest  satisfaction.  It  will  be  a  full  satisfac 
tion  indeed.  Mrs.  Deland  is  one  of  the  ablest  writers 
America  has  produced  so  far.  We  will  allow  her  to 
be  a  genius  if  genius  is,  after  all,  merely  the  capacity 
for  taking  infinite  pains  and  exhibiting  an  infinite 
comprehension  of  and  sympathy  with  simple  and  mem 
orable  lives. 

BOOKS  BY  MARGARET  DELAND 

Goo'd  for  the  Soul. 

The  Rising  Tide. 

R.  J.'s  Mother. 

The  Way  to  Peace. 

Where  the  Laborers  Are  Few. 

John  Ward,  Preacher. 

The  Old  Garden  and  Other  Verses. 

Philip  and  His  Wife. 

Florida  Days. 

Sidney. 

The  Story  of  a  Child. 

The  Wisdom  of  Fools. 

Mr.  Tommy  Dove  and  Other  Stories. 

Old  Chester  Tales. 

Dr.  Lavendar's  People. 

The  Common  Way,  1904. 

The  Awakening  of  Helena  Richie,  1906. 

An  Encore,  1907. 

The  Iron  Woman,  1911. 

The  Voice,  1912. 


MARGARET  DELAND  87 

Partners,  1913. 
The  Hands  of  Esau,  1914. 
Around  Old  Chester,  1915. 
Small  Things,  1919. 

Published  by  Harper  &  Brothers,  New  York;  Small 
Things  is  published  by  D.  Appleton  &  Company,  New 
York. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

GENE  STRATTON-PORTER 

BECAUSE  Gene  Stratton-Porter  cares  for  the 
truth  that  is  in  her,  she  is  the  most  widely  read 
and  most  widely  loved  author  in  America  to 
day,  with  the  probable  exception  of  Harold  Bell 
Wright.  She  is  absolutely  sincere  in  all  her  work,  she 
is  in  dead  earnest,  she  does  not  care  primarily  for 
money,  but  for  certain  ideas  and  ideals.  Let  no  one 
underestimate  the  tremendous  power  that  is  hers  be 
cause  of  these  things,  let  no  one  underestimate  her  hold 
upon  millions  of  readers;  let  none  undervalue  the  influ 
ence  she  has  exerted  and  continues  to  exert,  an  influ 
ence  always  for  good,  for  clean  living,  for  manly  men, 
for  womanly  women,  for  love  of  nature,  for  sane  and 
reasonable  human  hopes  and  aspirations,  for  honest 
affection,  for  wholesome  laughter,  for  a  healthy  emo 
tionalism  as  the  basis  and  justification  of  humble  and 
invaluable  lives. 

If  Mrs.  Porter  has  egoism  it  is  the  sort  of  egoism 
that  the  world  needs.  It  is  nothing  more  or  less  than 
a  firm  and  sustaining  belief  in  one's  self,  in  the  worth 
of  one's  work,  and  is  bred  of  a  passionate  conviction 
that  you  must  always  give  the  best  of  yourself  with 
out  stint.  Is  it  egoistical  to  believe  that?  Is  it  self- 
centeredness  to  be  proud  of  that?  Is  it  wrong,  having 

88 


GENE  STRATTON-PORTER  89 

set  the  world  the  best  example  of  which  you  are  ca 
pable,  to  call  it  to  the  world's  attention  ?  You  will  not 
get  the  present  reporter  to  say  so !  You  will  get  from 
him  nothing  but  an  expression  of  his  own  conviction 
that  while  literature,  aesthetically  viewed,  may  not 
have  been  enriched  by  Mrs.  Porter's  writings,  thou 
sands,  yes,  tens  of  thousands  of  men  and  women  have 
been  made  happier  and  better  by  her  stories.  And  that 
just  about  sweeps  any  other  possible  accomplishment 
into  limbo! 

The  secret  of  Mrs.  Porter's  success  is  sincerity,  com 
plete  sincerity;  doing  one's  best  work  and  doing  it  to 
the  top  of  one's  bent.  It  is  not  a  question  of  art. 
There  is  no  art  about  it.  The  finest  literary  artist 
in  the  world  could  not  duplicate  her  performance  un 
less  he  were  a  duplicate  of  her.  It's  not  a  literary 
matter  at  all ;  the  thing  has  its  roots  in  the  personality, 
in  the  mind  and  heart  and  nervous  organization  of 
the  writer.  If  you  could  be  a  Gene  Stratton-Porter 
you  could  write  the  novels  she  writes  and  achieve  just 
the  success  she  achieves,  a  success  which  is  improperly 
measured  by  earnings  of  $50x5,000  to  $750,000  from 
her  books,  a  success  of  which  the  true  measure  can1 
never  be  taken  because  it  is  a  success  in  human  lives 
and  not  in  dollars. 

The  best  evidence  of  this — for  there  will  be  doubt' 
ers — is  the  story  of  her  life,  very  largely  told  in  her 
own  words,  published  in  a  booklet  by  Doubleday,  Page 
&  Company  in  1915.  The  booklet,  for  some  time  to 
be  had  on  request,  is  now  out  of  print.  In  what  fol 
lows  it  is  drawn  upon  freely  and  almost  to  the  ex-* 
elusion  of  anything  else. 


90    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

"Mark  Stratton,  the  father  of  Gene  Stratton-Porter, 
described  his  wife,  at  the  time  of  their  marriage,  as  a 
'ninety-pound  bit  of  pink  porcelain,  pink  as  a  wild 
rose,  plump  as  a  partridge,  having  a  big  rope  of 
bright  brown  hair,  never  ill  a  day  in  her  life,  and 
bearing  the  loveliest  name  ever  given  a  woman — Mary.' 
He  further  added  that  'God  fashioned  her  heart  to  be 
gracious,  her  body  to  be  the  mother  of  children,  and 
as  her  especial  gift  of  Grace,  he  put  Flower  Magic 
into  her  fingers.'  " 

There  were  twelve  children.  Mrs.  Stratton  was  "a 
wonderful  mother."  She  kept  an  immaculate  house, 
set  a  famous  table,  hospitably  received  all  who  came 
to  her  door,  made  her  children's  clothing.  Her  great 
gift  was  making  things  grow.  "She  started  dainty 
little  vines  and  climbing  plants  from  tiny  seeds  she 
found  in  rice  and  coffee.  Rooted  things  she  soaked  in 
water,  rolled  in  fine  sand,  planted  according  to  habit, 
and  they  almost  never  failed  to  justify  her  expectations. 
She  even  grew  trees  and  shrubs  from  slips  and  cut 
tings  no  one  else  would  have  thought  of  trying  to  cul 
tivate,  her  last  resort  being  to  cut  a  slip  diagonally, 
insert  the  lower  end  in  a  small  potato,  and  plant  as 
if  rooted.  And  it  nearly  always  grew !" 

She  was  of  Dutch  extraction  and  "worked  her  spe 
cial  magic  with  bulbs,  which  she  favored  above  other 
flowers.  Tulips,  daffodils,  star  flowers,  lilies,  dahlias, 
little  bright  hyacinths,  that  she  called  'blue  bells,'  she 
dearly  loved.  From  these  she  distilled  exquisite  per 
fume  by  putting  clusters  at  time  of  perfect  bloom  in 
bowls  lined  with  freshly  made,  unsalted  butter,  cover 
ing  them  closely,  and  cutting  the  few  drops  of  extract 


GENE  STRATTON-PORTER  91 

thus  obtained  with  alcohol.  'She  could  do  more  dif 
ferent  things/  says  the  author,  'and  finish  them  all  in  a 
greater  degree  of  perfection,  than  any  other  woman 
I  have  ever  known.  If  I  were  limited  to  one  ad 
jective  in  describing  her,  "capable"  would  be  the 
word.'  " 

Mark  Stratton  was  of  English  blood,  a  descendant 
of  that  first  Mark  Stratton  of  New  York,  who  married 
the  beauty,  Anne  Hutchinson.  He  was  of  the  English 
family  of  which  the  Earl  of  Northbrooke  is  the  pres 
ent  head.  He  was  tenacious,  had  clear-cut  ideas,  could 
not  be  influenced  against  his  better  judgment.  "He 
believed  in  God,  in  courtesy,  in  honor,  and  cleanliness, 
in  beauty,  and  in  education.  He  used  to  say  that  he 
would  rather  see  a  child  of  his  the  author  of  a  book  of 
which  he  could  be  proud,  than  on  the  throne  of  Eng 
land,  which  was  the  strongest  way  he  knew  to  express 
himself.  His  very  first  earnings  he  spent  for  a  book; 
when  other  men  rested,  he  read;  all  his  life  he  was  a 
student  of  extraordinarily  tenacious  memory.  He 
especially  loved  history :  Rollands,  Wilson's  Outlines, 
Hume,  Macaulay,  Gibbon,  Prescott,  and  Bancroft,  he 
could  quote  from  all  of  them  paragraphs  at  a  time, 
contrasting  the  views  of  different  writers  on  a  given 
event,  and  remembering  dates  with  unfailing  accu 
racy."  The  Bible  he  knew  by  heart,  except  for  the 
Old  Testament  pedigrees.  This  is  a  literal  statement 
of  fact.  He  traveled  miles  to  deliver  sermons,  lec 
tures,  talks.  He  worshiped  humanity  and  all  out 
doors.  Color  was  a  prime  delight.  "  'He  had  a  streak 
of  genius  in  his  makeup,  the  genius  of  large  apprecia- 


92     THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

tion,'  "  says  Mrs.  Porter.  He  reveled  in  descriptions 
of  personal  bravery. 

"To  this  mother  at  forty-six,  and  this  father  at  fifty, 
each  at  intellectual  top-notch,  every  faculty  having 
been  stirred  for  years  by  the  dire  stress  of  civil  war, 
and  the  period  immediately  following,  the  author  was 
born,"  on  a  farm  in  Wabash  county,  Indiana,  in  1868. 
"From  childhood  she  recalls  'thinking  things  which 
she  felt  should  be  saved/  and  frequently  tugging  at 
her  mother's  skirts  and  begging  her  to  'set  down' 
what  the  child  considered  stories  and  poems.  Most 
of  these  were  some  big  fact  in  nature  that  thrilled 
her,  usually  expressed  in  Biblical  terms." 

The  farm  was  called  "Hopewell,"  after  the  home 
of  some  of  Mark  Stratton's  ancestors.  Mark  Strat- 
ton  and  his  wife  had  spent  twenty-five  years  beautify 
ing  it.  The  land  was  rolling,  with  springs  and  streams 
and  plenty  of  remaining  forest.  The  roads  were 
smooth,  the  house  and  barn  commodious;  the  family 
"rode  abroad  in  a  double  carriage  trimmed  in  patent 
leather,  drawn  by  a  matched  team  of  gray  horses,  and 
sometimes  the  father  'speeded  a  little'  for  the  delight 
of  the  children." 

The  girl  had  an  invalid  mother,  for  about  the  time 
when  Gene  could  first  remember  things  Mrs.  Stratton 
contracted  typhoid  after  nursing  three  of  her  children 
through  it.  She  never  recovered  her  health.  The 
youngest  child  was  therefore  allowed  to  follow  her 
father  and  brothers  afield  "and  when  tired  out  slept 
on  their  coats  in  fence  corners,  often  awaking  with 
shy  creatures  peering  into  her  face.  She  wandered 
where  she  pleased,  amusing  herself  with  birds,  flowers. 


GENE  STRATTON-PORTER  93 

insects  and  plays  she  invented.  'By  the  day  I  trotted 
from  one  object  which  attracted  me  to  another,  sing 
ing  a  little  song  of  made-up  phrases  about  everything 
I  saw  while  I  waded  catching  fish,  chasing  butterflies 
over  clover  fields,  or  following  a  bird  with  a  hair  in 
its  beak;  much  of  the  time  I  carried  the  inevitable 
baby  for  a  woman-child,  frequently  improvised  from 
an  ear  of  corn  in  the  silk,  wrapped  in  catalpa  leaf 
blankets. 

"  'I  stepped  lightly,  made  no  noise,  and  watched 
until  I  knew  what  a  mother  bird  fed  her  young  be 
fore  I  began  dropping  bugs,  worms,  crumbs,  and  fruit 
into  little  red  mouths  that  opened  at  my  tap  on  the 
nest  quite  as  readily  as  at  the  touch  of  the  feet  of  the 
mother  bird.  ...  I  fed  butterflies  sweetened  water 
and  rose  leaves  inside  the  screen  of  a  cellar  window, 
doctored  all  the  sick  and  wounded  birds  and  animals 
the  men  brought  me  from  afield;  made  pets  of  the 
baby  squirrels  and  rabbits  they  carried  in  for  my 
amusement ;  collected  wild  flowers ;  and  as  I  grew  older, 
gathered  arrow  points  and  goose  quills  for  sale  in  Fort 
Wayne.  So  I  had  the  first  money  I  ever  earned.' ' 

At  school  Mrs.  Porter  hated  mathematics.  Once 
when  a  mathematical  topic  for  an  essay  was  forced 
upon  her,  she  broke  loose  and  read  the  class  a  review 
of  Saintine's  Picciola,  the  story  of  an  imprisoned 
nobleman  and  a  tiny  flower  that  blossomed  within 
prison  walls.  She  fascinated  her  audience. 

"  'The  most  that  can  be  said  of  what  education  I 
have  is  that  it  is  the  very  best  kind  in  the  world  for 
me ;  the  only  possible  kind  that  would  not  ruin  a  per 
son  of  my  inclinations.  The  others  of  my  family  had 


04 

been  to  college;  I  always  have  been  too  thankful  for 
words  that  circumstances  intervened  which  saved  my 
brain  from  being  run  through  a  groove  in  company 
with  dozens  of  others  of  widely  different  tastes  and 
mentality.' '  Her  father  encouraged  her  in  writing, 
and  when  she  wanted  to  do  something  in  color  had 
an  easel  built  for  her.  On  it  she  afterward  painted 
the  water  colors  for  Moths  of  the  Limberlost.  If  she 
wanted  to  try  music  he  paid  for  lessons  for  her.  "  'It 
was  he  who  demanded  a  physical  standard  that  de 
veloped  strength  to  endure  the  rigors  of  scientific  field 
and  darkroom  work,  and  the  building  of  ten  books  in 
five  years,  five  of  which  were  on  nature  subjects,  hav 
ing  my  own  illustrations,  and  five  novels,  literally 
teeming  with  natural  history,  true  to  nature.  ...  It 
was  he  who  daily  lived  before  me  the  life  of  exactly 
such  a  man  as  I  portrayed  in  The  Harvester,  and  who 
constantly  used  every  atom  of  brain  and  body  power 
to  help  and  to  encourage  all  men  to  do  the  same.' ' 

In  1886,  at  eighteen,  Gene  Stratton  was  married  to 
Charles  Darwin  Porter.  A  daughter  was  born  to 
them,  but  the  fever  to  write  was  merely  in  abeyance 
for  a  while.  "It  dominated  the  life  she  lived,  the 
cabin  she  designed  for  their  home,  and  the  books  she 
read.  When  her  daughter  was  old  enough  to  go  to 
school,  Mrs.  Porter's  time  came." 

She  explains :  "  'I  could  not  afford  a  maid,  but  I 
was  very  strong,  vital  to  the  marrow,  and  I  knew 
how  to  manage  life  to  make  it  meet  my  needs,  thanks 
to  even  the  small  amount  I  had  seen  of  my  mother. 
I  kept  a  cabin  of  fourteen  rooms,  and  kept  it  im 
maculate.  I  made  most  of  my  daughter's  clothes,  I 


GENE  STRATTON-PORTER  95 

kept  a  conservatory  in  which  there  bloomed  from 
three  to  six  hundred  bulbs  every  winter,  tended  a 
house  of  canaries  and  linnets,  and  cooked  and  washed 
dishes  besides  three  times  a  day.  In  my  spare  time 
(mark  the  word,  there  was  time  to  spare  else  the 
books  never  would  have  been  written  and  the  pictures 
made)  I  mastered  photography  to  such  a  degree  that 
the  manufacturers  of  one  of  our  finest  brands  of  print 
paper  once  sent  the  manager  of  their  factory  to  me 
to  learn  how  I  handled  it.  He  frankly  said  that  they 
could  obtain  no  such  results  with  it  as  I  did.  He 
wanted  to  see  my  darkroom,  examine  my  parapher 
nalia,  and  have  me  tell  him  exactly  how  I  worked.  As 
I  was  using  the  family  bathroom  for  a  darkroom 
and  washing  negatives  and  prints  on  turkey  platters 
in  the  kitchen  sink,  I  was  rather  put  to  it  when  it 
came  to  giving  an  exhibition.'  .  .  . 

"She  began  by  sending  photographic  and  natural 
history  hints  to  Recreation,  and  with  the  first  install 
ment  was  asked  to  take  charge  of  the  department 
and  furnish  material  each  month,  for  which  she  was 
to  be  paid  at  current  prices  in  high-grade  photographic 
material.  We  can  form  some  idea  of  the  work  she 
did  under  this  arrangement  from  the  fact  that  she 
had  over  $1,000  worth  of  equipment  at  the  end  of 
the  first  year.  The  second  year  she  increased  this  by 
$500,  and  then  accepted  a  place  on  the  natural  history 
staff  of  Outing,  working  closely  with  Mr.  Caspar  Whit 
ney.  After  a  year  of  this  helpful  experience,  Mrs. 
Porter  began  to  turn  her  attention  to  what  she  calls 
'nature  studies  sugar-coated  with  fiction.'  Mixing 
some  childhood  fact  with  a  large  degree  of  grown-up 


96     THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

fiction,  she  wrote  a  little  story  entitled  Laddie,  the 
Princess,  and  the  Pie." 

She  dreaded  failure,  she  who  had  been  bred  to  be 
lieve  that  failure  was  disgraceful.  "  'I  who  waded 
morass,  fought  quicksands,  crept,  worked  from  lad 
ders  high  in  the  air,  and  crossed  water  on  impro 
vised  rafts  without  a  tremor,  slipped  with  many  mis 
givings  into  the  postoffice  and  rented  a  box  for  my 
self,  so  that  if  I  met  with  failure  my  husband  and 
the  men  in  the  bank  need  not  know  what  I  had  at 
tempted.'  " 

That  was  in  May ;  in  September  the  storekeeper  con 
gratulated  her  on  her  story  in  the  Metropolitan.  She 
had  not  seen  it.  She  wrote  to  the  editor  and  got  a 
quick  reply.  An  office  boy  had  lost  or  destroyed  her 
address  and  he  had  been  waiting  to  hear  from  her. 
Would  she  do  a  Christmas  story? 

She  would,  and  did,  and  he  asked  for  illustrations. 
She  found  that  his  time  limit  gave  her  one  day  to 
do  them  in.  She  worked  from  8  A.  M.  to  4  A.  M. 
to  make  the  necessary  photographs,  which  required 
special  settings  and  costuming. 

Not  long  after,  Mrs.  Porter  wrote  a  short 
story  of  10,000  words  and  sent  it  to  the  Century. 
Richard  Watson  Gilder  advised  her  to  make  a  book  of 
it.  This  is  the  origin  of  The  Song  of  the  Cardinal. 
"Following  Mr.  Gilder's  advice,  she  recast  the  tale 
and,  starting  with  the  mangled  body  of  a  cardinal 
some  marksman  had  left  in  the  road  she  was  travel 
ing,  in  a  fervor  of  love  for  the  birds  and  indignation 
at  the  hunter  she  told  the  cardinal's  life  history."  The 
book  was  published  in  1903. 


GENE  STRATTON-PORTER  97 

She  illustrated  the  book  herself  after  dangers  and 
hardships  of  which  the  reader  seldom  has  any  con 
ception.  Securing  a  mere  tailpiece  picture  once  cost 
her  three  weeks  in  bed  where  she  lay  twisted  in  con 
vulsions  and  insensible  most  of  the  time. 

Freckles  appeared  in  the  fall  of  1904.  She  had 
been  spending  every  other  day  for  three  months  in 
the  Limberlost  swamp,  making  a  series  of  studies  of 
the  nest  of  a  black  vulture.  She  combined  two  men 
to  make  McLean  of  the  story,  but  Sarah  Duncan  was 
a  real  woman;  Freckles  was  a  composite  of  certain 
ideals  and  her  own  field  experiences,  merged  with 
those  of  a  friend.  For  the  Angel  she  idealized  her 
own  daughter.  The  book  is  dedicated  to  her  husband, 
because  he  helped  make  it  possible.  She  had  promised 
him  not  to  work  in  the  Limberlost.  "  'There  were 
most  excellent  reasons  why  I  should  not  go  there. 
Much  of  it  was  impenetrable.  Only  a  few  trees  had 
been  taken  out;  oilmen  were  just  invading  it.  In  its 
physical  aspect  it  was  a  treacherous  swamp  and  quag 
mire  filled  with  every  plant,  animal  and  human  dan 
ger  known  in  the  worst  of  such  locations  in  the  Cen 
tral  States.' '  Nevertheless  lumbermen  had  brought 
word  of  the  vulture's  nest.  "  'I  hastened  to  tell  my 
husband  the  wonderful  story  of  the  big  black  bird, 
the  downy  white  baby,  the  pale  blue  egg.' '  So  he 
said  he  would  go  with  her. 

It  was  awful. 

"  'A  rod  inside  the  swamp  on  a  road  leading  to  an 
oil  well  we  mired  to  the  carriage  hubs.  I  shielded 
my  camera  in  my  arms  and  before  we  reached  the  well 
I  thought  the  conveyance  would  be  torn  to  pieces  and 


98     THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

the  horse  stalled.  At  the  well  we  started  on  foot, 
Mr.  Porter  in  kneeboots,  I  in  waist-high  waders.  The 
time  was  late  June ;  we  forced  our  way  between  steam 
ing,  fetid  pools,  through  swarms  of  gnats,  flies,  mos 
quitoes,  poisonous  insects,  keeping  a  sharp  watch  for 
rattlesnakes.  We  sank  ankle  deep  at  every  step  and 
logs  we  thought  solid  broke  under  us.  Our  progress 
was  a  steady  succession  of  pulling  and  prying  each 
other  to  the  surface.  Our  clothing  was  wringing 
wet,  and  the  exposed  parts  of  our  bodies  lumpy  with 
bites  and  stings.  My  husband  found  the  tree,  cleared 
the  opening  to  the  great  prostrate  log,  traversed  its 
unspeakable  odors  for  nearly  forty  feet  to  its  farthest 
recess,  and  brought  the  baby  and  egg  to  the  light  in 
his  leaf-lined  hat. 

"  'We  could  endure  the  location  only  by  dipping 
napkins  in  deodorant  and  binding  them  over  our 
mouths  and  nostrils.  Every  third  day  for  almost  three 
months  we  made  this  trip,  until  Little  Chicken  was 
able  to  take  wing.' ' 

The  story  itself — Freckles — originated  in  the  fact 
that  one  day,  while  leaving  the  swamp,  a  big  feather 
with  a  shaft  over  twenty  inches  long  came  spinning 
and  swirling  earthward  and  fell  in  the  author's  path. 
It  was  an  eagle's,  but  Mrs.  Porter  had  been  doing 
vultures,  so  a  vulture's  it  became. 

Freckles  took  three  years  to  find  its  audience.  The 
marginal  illustrations  made  people  think  it  purely  a 
nature  book.  The  news  that  it  was  a  novel  of  the  kind 
you  simply  must  read  had  to  get  about  by  word  of 
mouth.  The  copy  that  lies  beside  us  as  we  write  this 
sketch  was  printed  in  1914,  ten  years  after  the  story's 


GENE  STRATTON-PORTER  99 

first  appearance.  The  jacket  says  that  by  1914  exactly 
670,733  copies  had  been  sold.  And  the  most  impor 
tant  three  of  the  ten  years  were  largely  wasted! 

Publishers  told  Mrs.  Porter  then  and  afterward, 
repeatedly  and  emphatically,  that  if  she  wanted  to  sell 
her  best  and  make  the  most  money  she  must  cut  out 
the  nature  stuff.  But,  as  she  says,  her  real  reason  in 
writing  her  novels  was  to  bring  natural  history  at 
tractively  before  the  people  who  wouldn't  touch  it  in 
its  pure  state. 

"  'I  had  had  one  year's  experience  with  The  Song  of 
the  Cardinal,  frankly  a  nature  book,  and  from  the  start 
I  realized  that  I  never  could  reach  the  audience  I 
wanted  with  a  book  on  nature  alone.  To  spend  time 
writing  a  book  based  wholly  upon  human  passion  and 
its  outworking  I  would  not.  So  I  compromised  on  a 
book  into  which  I  put  all  the  nature  work  that  came  nat 
urally  within  its  scope,  and  seasoned  it  with  little  bits 
of  imagination  and  straight  copy  from  the  lives  of 
men  and  women  I  had  known  intimately,  folk  who 
lived  in  a  simple,  common  way  with  which  I  was  fa 
miliar.  So  I  said  to  my  publishers :  "I  will  write  the 
books  exactly  as  they  take  shape  in  my  mind.  You 
publish  them.  I  know  they  will  sell  enough  that  you  will 
not  lose.  If  I  do  not  make  over  $600  on  a  book  I 
shall  never  utter  a  complaint.  Make  up  my  work  as 
I  think  it  should  be  and  leave  it  to  the  people  as  to 
what  kind  of  book  they  will  take  into  their  hearts 
and  homes."  I  altered  Freckles  slightly,  but  from 
that  time  on  we  worked  on  this  agreement. 

"  'My  years  of  nature  work  have  not  been  without 
considerable  insight  into  human  nature,  as  well,'  con- 


ioo  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

tinues  Mrs.  Porter.  'I  know  its  failings,  its  inborn 
tendencies,  its  weaknesses,  its  failures,  its  depth  of 
crime;  and  the  people  who  feel  called  upon  to  spend 
their  time  analyzing,  digging  into,  and  uncovering 
these  sources  of  depravity  have  that  privilege,  more's 
the  pity!  If  I  had  my  way  about  it,  this  is  a  privi 
lege  no  one  could  have  in  books  intended  for  indis 
criminate  circulation.  I  stand  squarely  for  book  cen 
sorship,  and  I  firmly  believe  that  with  a  few  more 
years  of  such  books  as  half  a  dozen  I  could  mention, 
public  opinion  will  demand  this  very  thing.  My  life 
has  been  fortunate  in  one  glad  way:  I  have  lived 
mostly  in  the  country  and  worked  in  the  woods.  For 
every  bad  man  and  woman  I  have  ever  known,  I  have 
met,  lived  with,  and  am  intimately  acquainted  with 
an  overwhelming  number  of  thoroughly  clean  and 
decent  people  who  still  believe  in  God  and  cherish  high 
ideals,  and  it  is  u$on  the  lives  of  these  that  I  base  what 
I  write.  To  contend  that  this  does  not  produce  a  pic 
ture  true  to  life  is  idiocy.  It  does.  It  produces  a  pic 
ture  true  to  ideal  life;  to  the  best  that  good  men  and 
good  women  can  do  at  level  best. 

"  'I  care  very  little  for  the  magazine  or  newspaper 
critics  who  proclaim  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
a  moral  man,  and  that  my  pictures  of  life  are  senti 
mental  and  idealized.  They  are!  And  I  glory  in 
them !  They  are  straight,  living  pictures  from  the  lives 
of  men  and  women  of  morals,  honor,  and  loving  kind 
ness.  They  form  "idealized  pictures  of  life"  because 
they  are  copies  from  life  where  it  touches  religion, 
chastity,  love,  home,  and  hope  of  Heaven  ultimately. 
None  of  these  roads  leads  to  publicity  and  the  divorce 


GENE  STRATTON-PORTER  101 

court  They  all  end  in  the  shelter  and  seclusion  of 
a  home. 

"  'Such  a  big  majority  of  book  critics  and  authors 
have  begun  to  teach,  whether  they  really  believe  it  or 
not,  that  no  book  is  true  to  life  unless  it  is  true  to  the 
worst  in  life,  that  the  idea  has  infected  even  the 
women/  ' 

A  Girl  of  the  Limberlost  "  'comes  fairly  close  to  my 
idea  of  a  good  book.  No  possible  harm  can  be  done 
any  one  in  reading  it.  The  book  can,  and  does,  present 
a  hundred  pictures  that  will  draw  any  reader  in  closer 
touch  with  nature  and  the  Almighty,  my  primal  object 
in  each  line  I  write.  The  human  side  of  the  book  is 
as  close  a  character  study  as  I  am  capable  of  making. 
I  regard  the  character  of  Mrs.  Comstock  as  the  best 
thought-out  and  the  cleanest-cut  study  of  human  nature 
I  have  so  far  been  able  to  do.' ' 

Prior  to  the  appearance  of  A  Daughter  of  the  Land 
this  was  Mrs.  Porter's  best  book,  unquestionably.  All 
she  says  about  it  is  perfectly  true,  but  she  does  not 
give  herself  proper  credit  in  respect  of  one  or  two  of 
the  book's  qualities.  There  is  much  humor  in  it  and 
the  delineation  of  Kate  Comstock,  particularly  in  the 
first  half  of  the  book,  has  the  sharpness  of  line  and 
the  sureness  of  handling  visible  in  a  fine  etching.  Con 
sciously  or  subconsciously  Mrs.  Porter  created  at  the 
very  outset  of  her  story,  in  the  second  chapter,  a  sit 
uation  which  appeals  to  the  most  thrilling  and  satis 
fying  instinct  in  the  human  breast.  Elnora,  pitifully 
dressed,  has  spent  a  humiliating  first  day  at  high  school 
in  town.  Since  her  mother  will  not  provide  them, 
Margaret  and  Wesley  Sinton  go  forth  at  nightfall  to 


102  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

buy  the  clothes  the  girl  needs  to  wear  and  sit  up  half 
the  night  to  get  them  ready  quickly.  It  is  both  hu 
morous  and  genuinely  moving.  The  reader  shares 
their  burst  of  generosity.  He  shops  with  them  and 
sits  up  with  them  and  worries  with  them  and  rejoices 
and  partakes  of  their  happiness  in  "doing  for"  the  girl; 
he  is  all  the  while  quite  conscious  of  the  humor  of  the 
situation  without  any  abatement  of  the  tenderness  and 
delight  that  is  his  as  well  as  theirs.  This  is  great  work ; 
it  may  not  be  great  literature;  whether  it  is  or  not 
depends  on  what  you  require  "literature"  to  give  you. 
The  innumerable  readers  who  require  literature  to  give 
them  what  life  gives  them  (or  even  more,  what  life 
unjustly  withholds  from  them) — emotion,  pure,  deep, 
contenting  and  cleansing — these  will  ask  no  more  than 
Mrs.  Porter  gives  them  here. 

The  idea  of  The  Harvester  was  suggested  to  Mrs. 
Porter  by  an  editor  who  wanted  a  magazine  article, 
with  human  interest  in  it,  about  ginseng  diggers.  As 
she  looked  into  the  raising  of  the  drug,  the  idea  came 
to  her  of  a  man  growing  drug  plants  professionally 
and  of  a  sick  girl  healed  by  them.  "  T  wrote  pri 
marily  to  state  that  to  my  personal  knowledge^,  clean, 
loving  men  still  exist  in  this  world,  and  that  no  man 
is  forced  to  endure  the  grind  of  city  life  if  he  wills 
otherwise.  ...  I  wrote  the  book  as  I  thought  it  should 
be  written,  to  prove  my  points  and  establish  my  con 
tentions.  I  think  it  did.  Men  the  globe  around 
promptly  wrote  me  that  they  had  always  observed  the 
moral  code;  others  that  the  subject  never  in  all  their 
lives  had  been  presented  to  them  from  my  point  of 
view,  but  now  that  it  had  been,  they  would  change  and 


GENE  STRATTON-PORTER  103 

do  what  they  could  to  influence  all  men  to  do  the 
same.' ' 

Laddie — "'Of  a  truth,  the  home  I  described  in  this 
book  I  know  to  the  last  grain  of  wood  in  the  doors, 
and  I  painted  it  with  absolute  accuracy;  and  many  of 
the  people  I  described  I  knew  more  intimately  than  I 
ever  have  known  any  others.  .  .  .  There  was  such 
a  man  as  Laddie,  and  he  was  as  much  bigger  and 
better  than  my  description  of  him  as  a  real  thing 
is  always  better  than  its  presentment.' ' 

Mrs.  Porter  does  not  put  money  first,  nor  any 
where  near  first.  "When  the  public  had  discovered 
her  and  given  generous  approval  to  A  Girl  of  the 
Limbcrlost,  when  The  Harvester  had  established  a 
new  record,  that  would  have  been  the  time  for  the 
author  to  prove  her  commercialism  by  dropping  na 
ture  work,  and  plunging  headlong  into  books  it  would 
pay  to  write,  and  for  which  many  publishers  were 
offering  her  alluring  sums.  Mrs.  Porter's  answer 
was  the  issuing  of  such  books  as  Music  of  the  Wild 
and  Motlis  of  the  Limberlost.  No  argument  is  nec 
essary."  No  argument  is  possible.  Mrs.  Porter  has 
spent  a  great  deal  of  the  small  fortunes  her  novels 
have  brought  her  on  nature  books  which  represent 
years  of  field  work  and  a  staggering  expenditure  for 
scientific  materials. 

This  is  Mrs.  Porter's  own  description  of  the  Lim 
berlost  swamp  where  she  has  done  so  much  work 
and  which  she  has  made  yield  such  good  stories. 

"  'In  the  beginning  of  the  end  a  great  swamp  re 
gion  lay  in  northeastern  Indiana.  Its  head  was  in 
what  is  now  Noble  and  DeKalb  counties;  its  body  in 


104  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

Allen  and  Wells,  and  its  feet  in  southern  Adams 
and  northern  Jay.  The  Limberlost  lies  at  the  foot 
and  was,  when  I  settled  near  it,  exactly  as  described 
in  my  books.  The  process  of  dismantling  it  was  told 
in  Freckles  to  start  with,  carried  on  in  A  Girl  of  the 
Limberlost,  and  finished  in  Moths  of  the  Limberlost. 
Now  it  has  so  completely  fallen  prey  to  commercial 
ism  through  the  devastation  of  lumbermen,  oilmen, 
and  farmers,  that  I  have  been  forced  to  move  my 
working  territory  and  build  a  new  cabin  about  sev 
enty  miles  north  at  the  head  of  the  swamp  in  Noble 
county,  where  there  are  many  lakes,  miles  of  un 
broken  marsh,  and  a  far  greater  wealth  of  plant  and 
animal  life  than  existed  during  my  time  in  the  south 
ern  part.  At  the  north  end  every  bird  that  frequents 
the  Central  States  is  to  be  found.  Here  grow  in 
profusion  many  orchids,  fringed  gentians,  cardinal 
flowers,  turtle  heads,  starry  campions,  purple  gerar- 
dias,  and  grass  of  Parnassus.  In  one  season  I  have 
located  here  almost  every  flower  named  in  the  bota 
nies  as  native  to  those  regions  and  several  that  I  can 
find  in  no  book  in  my  library. 

"  'But  this  change  of  territory  involves  the  pur 
chase  of  fifteen  acres  of  forest  and  orchard  land,  on 
a  lake  shore  in  a  marsh  country.  It  means  the  build 
ing  of  a  permanent,  all-year-round  home,  which  will 
provide  the  comforts  of  life  for  my  family  and  fur 
nish  a  workshop  consisting  of  a  library,  a  photo 
graphic  darkroom  and  negative  closet,  and  a  printing 
room  for  me.  I  could  live  in  such  a  home  as  I  could 
provide  on  the  income  from  my  nature  work  alone; 
but  when  my  working  grounds  were  cleared,  drained 


GENE  STRATTON-PORTER  105 

and  plowed  up,  literally  wiped  from  the  face  of  the 
earth,  I  never  could  have  moved  to  new  country  had 
it  not  been  for  the  earnings  of  my  novels,  which  I 
now  spend,  and  always  have  spent,  in  great  part, 
upon  my  nature  work.  Based  on  this  plan  of  work 
and  life  I  have  written  ten  books,  and  "please  God 
I  live  so  long,"  I  shall  write  ten  more.  Possibly 
every  one  of  them  will  be  located  in  northern  In 
diana.  Each  one  will  be  filled  with  all  the  field  and 
woods  legitimately  falling  to  its  location  and  peopled 
with  the  best  men  and  women  I  have  known.'  ' 

This  promise  Mrs.  Porter  has  kept  in  her  latest 
novel,  A  Daughter  of  the  Land,  the  story  of  Kate 
Bates,  an  American  through  and  through,  who  fought 
for  her  freedom  against  long  odds,  renouncing  the 
easy  path  of  luxury  that  leads  to  loss  of  self-re 
spect.  It  is  Mrs.  Porter's  finest  novel,  this  story  of  a 
woman's  life  from  her  teens  to  well  past  forty,  from 
school  days  to  her  second  marriage.  It  is  a  much  more 
ambitious  attempt  than  any  of  her  other  stories  and 
as  successful  as  it  is  big. 

Shamelessly  we  have  built  this  chapter  almost  en 
tirely  upon  Mrs.  Porter's  own  account  of  herself — 
but  could  any  one  do  better  than  to  present  that  ?  We 
are  confident  he  could  not.  And  aside  from  what  she 
has  to  say  of  her  stories  they  call  for  no  special 
survey  one  by  one.  The  one  supremely  significant 
thing  to  grasp  is  her  sincerity  and  her  giving  of  the 
best  that  is  in  her.  Now,  the  mass  of  people  possess, 
in  respect  of  these  qualities  in  a  writer,  a  sort  of 
sixth  sense,  a  perfectly  infallible  instinct  that  tells 
them  when  a  writer  is  sincere,  when  he  is  giving 


106  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

of  his  best.  It  is  the  faculty  aptly  described  in  the 
phrase:  "I  don't  know  much  about  literature,  but  I 
know  what  I  like."  To  be  sure  you  do !  And  that's 
as  near  as  ready  characterization  can  come  to  the 
secret!  The  person  who  has  achieved  a  certain  meas 
ure  of  sophistication  or  who  has  cultivated  his  taste 
(which  may  mean  improving  it  but  always  means 
narrowing  it)  does  not  know  what  he  likes!  He 
knows  only  what  he  doesn't  like — or  at  least  he  is 
always  finding  it.  He  pays  the  price  of  every  re 
finer  in  the  loss  of  broad  and  basic  satisfaction.  Cul 
tivate  a  tongue  for  caviar  and  you  lose  the  honest 
and  healthful  enjoyment  of  corned  beef  and  cabbage. 
When  you  appreciate  Bach  you  can  no  longer  get 
thrilling  pleasure  hearing  a  military  band.  It's  the 
same  way  everywhere  and  with  everybody. 

If  some  people  find  no  pleasure  or  benefit  in  Gene 
Stratton-Porter's  stories,  that  is  exclusively  their  own 
fault.  They  are  looking  for  certain  aesthetic  satis 
factions  in  what  they  read  and  they  require  them  so 
absolutely  that  the  writer's  best  and  the  writer's  sin 
cerity  cannot  compensate  for  their  absence.  Is  it 
good  to  have  come  to  such  a  state?  Every  one  must 
make  up  his  own  mind  about  that,  even  as  he  must  make 
his  own  decision  whether  he  will  strive  to  attain  it. 
Everything  of  this  sort  is  to  be  had  for  a  price, — 
if  you  want  to  pay  so  much. 

"  'To  my  way  of  thinking  and  working  the  greatest 
service  a  piece  of  fiction  can  do  any  reader  is  to  leave 
him  with  a  higher  ideal  of  life  than  he  had  when  he 
began.  If  in  one  small  degree  it  shows  him  where  he 


GENE  STRATTON-PORTER  107 

can  be  a  gentler,  saner,  cleaner,  kindlier  man,  it  is  a 
wonder-working  book.' ' 

Thus  Gene  Stratton-Porter.  There  is  incontest 
able  evidence  that  her  books  have  done  these  very 
things.  Literature,  we  have  been  told,  is  "a  criticism 
of  life."  How  about  molding  lives? 

BOOKS  BY  GENE  STRATTON-PORTER 

The  Song  of  the  Cardinal,  1903. 
Freckles,  1904. 

What  I  Have  Done  With  Birds  [Friends  in  Feath 
ers'],  1907. 

At  the  Foot  of  the  Rainbow,  1908. 

A  Girl  of  the  Limberlost,  1909. 

Birds  of  the  Bible,  1909. 

Music  of  the  Wild,  1910. 

The  Harvester,  1911. 

Moths  of  the  Limberlost,  1912. 

Laddie,  1913. 

Michael  O'Halloran,  1915. 

Morning  Face. 

A  Daughter  of  the  Land,  1918. 

Mrs.  Porter's  books  are  published  by  Doubleday, 
Page  &  Company,  New  York. 


CHAPTER  IX 

ELEANOR  H.  PORTER 

IN  the  pleasant  old  town  of  Cambridge,  Mass 
achusetts,  there  is  a  fourth  (top  floor)  apart 
ment  and  above  it  a  roof  garden.  Come  up  on 
the  roof.  "Fresh,  clean  light  canvas,  framed  in  by 
borders  of  flowers,  with  a  hammock  to  dream  in  and 
a  good  stout  table  and  a  typewriter,"  confront  us. 
At  the  table  a  little  woman,  blonde,  youthful  look 
ing,  her  light  and  fluffy  hair  neatly  combed,  her  blue 
eyes — "laughing  eyes" — changing  expression  rapidly 
with  her  thoughts.  She  is  writing  with  a  lead  pencil 
and  when  she  stops  to  talk  to  us  she  shows  a  ready 
wittedness,  a  conversational  gift,  an  aliveness  that 
are  charming — charming! 

She  tells  us  that  she  works  here  every  morning 
when  too  boisterous  winds  or  a  driving  storm  do 
not  make  it  impossible;  or  too  low  a  temperature. 
She  writes  novels.  It  takes  her  a  year  to  do  one  and 
when  she  has  finished  she  is  good  for  nothing  for 
several  days.  She  writes  each  book  three  times; 
first  in  lead  pencil,  the  second  draft  on  the  typewriter 
here,  "and  it  is  this  copy  that  is  polished  over  and  re 
written  and  tinkered  with — and  all  fixed  up."  The 
third  draft  has  usually  few  changes.  It,  or  a  stenog 
rapher's  copy  of  it,  goes  to  the  publisher,  and  later 

108 


ELEANOR  H.  PORTER  109 

there  comes  a  message  from  Houghton  Mifflin  Com 
pany  in  Boston: 

"Advance  orders  for  your  new  novel  Just  David 
are  100,000  copies." 

Isn't  that  rewarding?  Just  David  will  be  out  in 
a  few  days  now.  .  .  . 

The  author  of  Just  David — and  The  Road  to  Un 
derstanding  and  Oh,  Money!  Money!  and,  why  of 
course  of  Pollyannal — is  not  thinking  of  the  royal 
ties  that  will  be  hers  on  100,000  copies  of  her  novel. 
No.  Eleanor  H.  Porter  makes  a  moderate  fortune 
with  each  of  her  books.  But  what  rewards  her  for 
the  task  of  writing  them — did  you  ever  sit  down 
and  write,  just  write,  80,000  words,  let  alone  telling 
a  story? — what  gives  her  the  satisfaction  that's  of 
the  heart  is  the  invincible  proof  that  a  hundred 
thousand  are  buying  her  book  6n  faith.  They  believe 
in  her,  in  her  work ;  she  has  pleased  them,  made  them 
happier  or  better  somehow,  somewhere,  somewhen; 
they  look  to  her  for  help,  for  cheer,  for  entertain 
ment,  for  a  kind  of  enlightenment  that  they  haven't 
found  elsewhere  and  that  will  be  supremely  worth 
their  while. 

Stand  aside,  you  who  are  sophisticated,  cynical, 
world  worn  and  merely  flippant!  If  you  could  see 
assembled  before  you  in  one  vast  throng  this  hun 
dred  thousand  and  tens  of  thousands  more,  if  you 
could  see  them  gathered  about  you  with  upturned 
interested,  expectant  and  eager  faces,  what  would 
you  say?  What  could  you  say?  Do  you  think  your 
sophistication  would  be  proof  against  the  expression 
on  these  faces?  Do  you  think  that  you  could  give 


no  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

them  what  they  need?  Would  your  subtleties  help 
them?  Would  they  listen  to  you  and  go  away  a 
little  braver,  a  little  more  comforted,  a  little  readier 
to  face  life? 

Up  in  the  White  Mountains  there's  a  cabin  called 
after  the  girl  Pollyanna.  Out  in  Colorado  there's  a 
Pollyanna  teahouse.  A  little  maid  in  Texas  bears 
the  name.  The  builder  of  an  apartment  house  in  an 
Indiana  city  has  his  fancy  struck.  There's  a  Polly 
anna  brand  of  milk,  and  Pollyanna  clubs  are  formed 
whose  members  sport  an  enameled  button  showing 
a  young  girl's  sweet  face.  Surely  the  woman  who 
can  so  touch  the  hearts,  the  imagination,  or  even 
merely  the  fancy  of  men  and  women  and  children 
everywhere — surely  she  and  her  work  call  for  re 
spectful  consideration.  There  must  be  something 
here,  something  admirable,  if  we  can  only  put  our 
fingers  on  it!  There  is. 

And  first  let  us  hear  about  Mrs.  Porter  herself. 
We  have  met  her  at  work.  Was  there  anything  to 
suggest  direct  descent  from  Governor  William  Brad 
ford  of  the  Mayflower  and  the  "stern  and  rockbound 
coast"?  There  was  not.  There  was,  however,  a 
suggestion  of  a  childhood  spent  in  an  oldtime  white 
frame  New  England  house,  with  green  blinds  and 
big  pillars  in  front.  There  was  certainly  more  than 
a  suggestion  of  a  child  brought  up  to  play  indoors 
and  out.  With  a  little  imagination  we  could  have 
seen  her  studying  music,  always  music,  loving  to 
improvise.  "I  liked  to  play  out  all  my  moods  and 
everything  I  saw  and  heard.  I  could  get  rid  of  my 
tempers,  too,  by  sometimes  just  playing  them  out. 


ELEANOR  H.  PORTER  in 

And  I  liked  to  play  the  beautiful  things  I  saw — sun 
sets,  woods  and  lakes.  ...  In  that  way,  per 
haps,  David  is  autobiographical.  .  .  .  The  many 
years'  training  in  voice  as  well  as  instrumental  music 
has  never  failed  to  help  me  in  expressing  just  the 
mood  I  want  to  express." 

She  was  born  in  Littleton,  New  Hampshire,  a 
place  of  some  few  thousands  in  the  White  Mountains, 
the  daughter  of  Francis  H.  Hodgman  and  Llewella 
Woolson  Hodgman.  She  had  a  brother  to  play  with. 
She  "knew  the  woods  from  early  childhood."  Little 
verses  and  stories  by  her  commemorated  birthdays 
and  other  occasions  of  moment.  In  high  school  ill 
health  arrested  her  studies.  For  a  while  books  had 
to  be  put  entirely  aside  and  she  lived  a  good  deal  out 
doors.  Spruce,  fir,  cedar  and  tamarack,  mountain 
flowers  and  plants,  became  personalities  to  be  distin 
guished  one  from  ariother  and  to  be  delighted  in  for 
their  peculiarities.  When  she  wrote  Just  David  she 
had  only  to  recall  her  youth,  after  all. 

Health  regained,  she  went  to  Boston  for  more 
musical  study  under  private  teachers  and  at  the  New 
England  Conservatory.  She  sang  in  concerts  and 
in  church  choirs.  In  1892  she  was  married  to  John 
Lyman  Porter.  She  lived  a  year  in  Chattanooga 
and  a  few  years  in  New  York  and  Springfield,  Ver 
mont;  Boston  (Cambridge)  has  been  her  home  with 
these  exceptions.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Porter  have  lived 
in  Cambridge  for  the  last  sixteen  years.  Mrs.  Por 
ter's  mother,  Mrs.  Hodgman,  an  invalid,  has  lived 
with  them. 

We  have  said  that  Mrs.  Porter  works  every  morn* 


H2  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

ing.  Yes,  the  morning  hours  are  set  apart  for  her 
work  and  it  is  not  readily  interrupted.  Her  first 
book,  published  in  1907,  was  Cross  Currents,  a  study 
of  child  labor,  struck  out  from  her  by  what  she  had 
seen  in  New  York  of  youngsters  made  to  toil  at  the 
fashioning  of  artificial  flowers.  Indeed,  her  first  im 
pulse  to  write  came  to  her  in  New  York,  on  an  after 
noon  several  years  after  her  marriage,  as  she  stood 
in  Trinity  churchyard.  It  was  a  flash,  a  dramatic 
impression  such  as  comes  to  many  a  visitor.  When 
these  dead  awaken!  //  these  dead  were  to  awaken, 
were  to  come  back  to  us  here  and  now !  How  would 
they  think  and  feel  about  what  they  would  see? 
What  would  they  say  and  do? 

Well— 

"So  that  was  how  I  got  my  start."  True  enough, 
for  the  real  start  comes  in  the  impulse,  doesn't  it? 
After  that  has  been  felt  intervals  hardly  matter.  .  .  . 

Cross  Currents  was  successful  and  Mrs.  Porter 
was  persuaded  to  write  a  sequel,  The  Turn  of  the 
Tide.  She  had  developed  a  habit,  now  fixed,  of 
clipping  from  newspapers  and  magazines  bits  of 
news,  comments,  whatnot,  that  were  significant  to 
her.  These  she  filed,  filed  and  card  indexed.  One 
day  she  saw  in  some  magazine  four  lines  expressing 
wonder  as  to  what  would  happen  if  feminine  in 
fluence  came  into  the  home  life  of  three  bachelors. 

From  those  four  lines,  or  rather,  from  the  idea  in 
them,  came  Miss  Billy;  and  from  Miss  Billy  came  Miss 
Billy's  Decision  and  Miss  Billy — Married.  Not  im 
mediately;  Mrs.  Porter  filed  the  clipping.  She 
thought  vaguely  that  perhaps,  maybe,  some  day,  she 


ELEANOR  H.  PORTER  113 

would  write  a  short  story — only  a  short  story — based 
on  the  idea  in  this  sentence  or  so.     ... 

Polly  anna — 

So  many  think  of  Mrs.  Porter  only  as  the  author 
of  Pollyanna — they  are  not  her  real  readers  who 
know  better! — that  it  is  much  fairer  to  her  and  our 
selves  to  consider  her  other  books.  After  the  Polly 
anna  stories  came  Just  David,  easily  accounted  for. 
Mrs.  Porter  says  that  her  thoughts  had  often  played 
around  the  idea  of  a  child  brought  up  to  know  only 
what  is  good.  You  shudder,  or  laugh.  Good  heav 
ens,  don't  you  wish  that  you  could  have  been  spared 
some  of  the  things  you  were  brought  up  to  know? 
At  the  bottom  of  your  acquired  attitude  is  there,  no 
faint  wistfulness,  no  trace  of  longing  for  something 
once  loved  and  lost — not  awhile  but  forever? 

David  is  the  only  son  of  a  violinist.     After  his. 
mother's  death  the  father  carries  the  boy  to  a  cabin 
in  the  mountains.     Six  years  afterward  he  is  brought 
to  a  quiet  country  town — a  lad  in  love  with  music, 
with  birds  and  flowers. 

"Mr.  and  Mrs.  Holly,  more  than  ever  now,  were 
learning  to  look  at  the  world  through  David's  eyes. 
One  day — one  wonderful  day — they  went  to  walk  in 
the  woods  with  the  boy;  and  whenever  before  had 
Simon  Holly  left  his  work  for  so  frivolous  a  thing 
as  to  walk  in  the  woods! 

"It  was  not  accomplished  without  a  struggle,  as 
David  could  have  told.  All  the  morning  David 
urged  and  begged.  If  for  once,  just  once,  they  would 
leave  everything  and  come,  they  would  not  regret 
it,  he  was  sure.  But  they  shook  their  heads  and  said, 


114  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

'No,  no,  impossible.'  In  the  afternoon  the  pies  were 
done  and  the  potatoes  dug  and  David  urged  and 
pleaded  again.  And  to  please  the  boy  they  went. 

"It  was  a  curious  walk.  Ellen  Holly  trod  softly 
with  timid  feet.  She  threw  hurried,  frightened 
glances  from  side  to  side.  It  was  plain  that  Ellen 
Holly  did  not  know  how  to  play.  Simon  Holly 
stalked  at  her  elbow,  stern,  silent  and  preoccupied.  It 
was  plain  that  Simon  Holly  not  only  did  not  know 
how  to  play,  but  did  not  care  to  find  out. 

"The  boy  tripped  along  ahead  and  talked.  He  had 
the  air  of  a  monarch  displaying  his  kingdom.  Here 
was  a  flower  that  was  like  a  story  for  interest,  and 
there  was  a  bush  that  bore  a  secret  worth  telling. 
Even  Simon  Holly  glowed  into  a  semblance  of  life 
when  David  had  unerringly  picked  out  and  called  by 
name  the  spruce,  and  fir,  and  pine,  and  larch;  and 
then,  in  answer  to  Mrs.  Holly's  murmured,  'But, 
David,  where  is  the  difference?  They  look  so  much 
alike,'  had  said: 

"  'Oh,  but  they  are  not.  Just  see  how  much  more 
pointed  at  the  top  this  fir  is  than  that  spruce  back 
there;  and  the  branches  grow  straight  out,  too,  like 
arms,  and  they  are  all  smooth  and  tapering  at  the 
end  like  a  pussy-cat's  tail.  But  the  spruce  back  there 
• — its  branches  turned  down  and  out — didn't  you 
notice? — and  they  are  all  bushy  at  the  end  like  a 
squirrel's  tail.  Oh,  they're  lots  different. 

"  'That's  a  larch  way  ahead — that  one  with  the 
branches  all  scraggly  and  close  down  to  the  ground. 
I  could  start  to  climb  that  easy,  but  I  couldn't  that 
pine  over  there.  See,  it's  way  up  before  there  is  a 


ELEANOR  H.  PORTER  113 

place  for  your  feet!  But  I  love  pines.  Up  there  on 
the  mountain,  where  I  lived,  the  pines  were  so  tall 
that  it  seemed  as  if  God  used  them  sometimes  to 
hold  up  the  sky.' 

"And  Simon  Holly  heard,  and  said  nothing,  and 
that  he  did  say  nothing — especially  nothing  in  an 
swer  to  David's  confident  assertions  concerning  celes 
tial  and  terrestrial  architecture — only  goes  to  show  how 
well,  indeed,  the  man  was  learning  to  look  at  the  world 
through  David's  eyes.  .  .  ." 

"If  the  characters  are  true,  the  story  tells  itself," 
says  Mrs.  Porter.  "The  plot  comes  very  easily  after 
I  get  some  leading  idea  which  I  wish  to  work  out. 
It  is  sometimes  months  after  I  have  something  in 
mind  before  I  have  carried  the  idea  along  far  enough 
to  begin  writing.  The  ideas  for  novels  come  from 
careful  observation  and  wide  reading. 

"No,  I  would  not  say  that  novels  are  written  by 
inspiration.  I  call  it  enthusiasm.  And  unless  the 
writer  has  enthusiasm  while  writing  a  novel  I  think 
the  indifference  is  bound  to  show  in  the  story." 

Her  own  enthusiasm  holds  her  to  the  task,  carries 
her  through  the  year  she  devotes  to  a  book,  enables 
her  sometimes  to  write  steadily  for  eight  or  nine 
hours  and  then  spend  an  evening  with  her  heavy  cor 
respondence.  Her  enthusiasm,  a  steady  flame,  burns 
to  the  end;  and  then  her  exhaustion  does  not  matter. 
The  task  is  done. 

Without  an  idea — a  crisp,  definite,  interesting  idea 
is  always  there,  whether  you  like  her  novels  or  no 
— without  an  idea  Mrs.  Porter  won't  write.  But 
when  she  begins  to  write  she  has  much  more  than  the 


ii6  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

idea.  She  has  a  synopsis  written  out.  She  couldn't 
work  without  one,  she  says.  And  to  that  synopsis 
she  sticks  pretty  closely.  "For  I  must  see  my  aim," 
she  explains,  "I  must  have  every  part  of  the  story 
bear  definitely  toward  the  object.  The  synopsis  of 
Pollyanna  differs  very  little  from  the  completed  story. 
However,  the  glad  game  was  not  in  the  synopsis. 
That  did  invent  itself — in  the  second  chapter.  And 
of  course  various  characters  always  have  a  way  of 
sort  of  writing  themselves  in,  and  new  scenes  and  in 
cidents  suggest  themselves  as  the  book  grows." 

Does  Mrs.  Porter  preach?  Not  by  intention.  She 
abhors  the  notion  of  trying  to.  She  does  believe  that 
"the  idea  of  happiness  should  be  held  up  to  people. 
But  I  do  not  attempt  to  preach  happiness,"  she  adds 
hastily.  "I  make  my  characters  as  simple  and  natural 
as  possible.  If  the  characters  are  sufficiently  vivid, 
if  they  are  true,  they  can  say  a  lot  of  things  that  no 
author  could  say  directly  without  being  charged  with 
sermonizing." 

Oho!  remarks  the  critic,  Mrs.  Porter  thinks  that 
if  she  puts  her  preaching  into  the  mouths  of  her 
persons  she  can  escape  the  charge  of  sermonizing. 
Wrong.  Mrs.  Porter  does  not  say  that.  She  does 
declare  that  if  the  characters  are  true  they  can  say 
things  that,  from  the  author,  would  be  mere  preach 
ing.  Truth  in  your  people  comes  first,  must  always 
be  first;  if  they  are  true  they  can,  and  probably  will, 
not  only  say  but  do  many  thing's  with  a  moral  in 
them.  Why,  aren't  we  always  reading  a  moral  out 
of — or  into — every  other  thing  we  hear  our  neigh 
bors  say  or  see  them  do? 


ELEANOR  H.  PORTER  117 

The  critic  has  another  quarrel  with  Eleanor  Por 
ter.  He  accuses  her  of  "evasive  idealism"  and  "sham 
optimism"  in  her  stories.  Let  her  answer  him : 

"Just  why  the  'realities  of  life'  should  always  mean 
the  filth  and  brambles,  sticks  and  stones  and  stum 
bling  blocks  of  our  daily  pathway  I  have  never  under 
stood,"  she  cries.  "But  such  seems  to  be  the  case. 
To  most  critics  there  are  evidently  no  pleasantly 
agreeable,  decent  qualities  of  life.  But  I  believe  that 
there  are,  and  these  realities  may  lend  themselves 
to  just  as  sincere  and  direct  an  interpretation  of  life 
as  may  the  other  kind. 

"There  is  a  blue  sky,  there  is  a  warm  sun,  and 
there  are  birds  that  sing  in  the  treetops.  Then  why 
should  their  presence  be  unnoticed — sometimes? 
That  is  certainly  not  a  sugary  philosophy  utterly 
without  a  basis  in  logic  or  human  experience.  I  re 
alize  that  this  sort  of  thing  can  be  overdone,  but 
still  contend  that  always  to  look  at  the  hole  instead 
of  the  doughnut  is  not  only  very  foolish — but  very 
detrimental  to  one's  digestion." 

Bravo!  A  simple,  straightforward  and  unstudied 
rejoinder,  that!  And  if  the  critic  says  that  he  is  only 
asking  for  "both  realities"  let  us  demand  of  him  why 
he  praised  the  "artistry"  of  those  dark  Russian  novels 
of  muck  and  insanity — and  nothing  else.  He  must 
condemn  them  for  their  worse  one-sidedness  ere  we 
listen  to  another  word  from  him.  Moreover,  we 
have,  we  must  confess,  whatever  our  personal  tastes 
in  fiction,  always  enough  and  too  many  of  the  special 
ists  in  gloom;  never  quite  enough  of  the  purveyors 
of  cheerfulness. 


n8  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

You  may  feel  a  possibly  irrational  prejudice 
against  the  child  that  cheers,  as  Pollyanna  or  David, 
but  if  you  do  not  find  absorbing  the  situation  in  a 
"grown-up"  novel  like  The  Road  to  Understanding 
it  is  your  fault,  not  Eleanor  Porter's.  Here  is  the  son 
of  a  very  rich  man  who  has  always  had  his  way  and 
so  takes  it  headlong  in  the  matter  of  marrying  his 
aunt's  nursegirl.  She  is  not  fitted  to  make  him 
happy.  They  are  separated — never  mind  how.  The 
husband  thinks  of  it  as  a  "vacation"  for  his  wife 
and  the  baby  girl  and  has  no  idea  that  the  breach  may 
be  semi-permanent.  The  wife  makes  it  so.  She 
goes  to  a  friend  of  her  husband  and  begs  him  to  en 
able  her  to  become  in  education,  in  tastes,  in  deport 
ment  fit  to  be  Burke  Denby's  wife.  And  she  per 
suades  him  to  it.  Her  whereabouts,  the  whereabouts 
of  herself  and  Burke  Denby's  little  daughter,  is  so 
simply  and  effectually  concealed,  that  the  husband 
never  gets  trace  of  them.  What  Helen  Denby  has 
set  out  to  do  is  rather  impossible  as  regards  herself, 
she  acknowledges  that;  but  with  the  passage  of  years 
and  constant  association  with  well-bred  people  she 
does  very  largely  acquire  the  things  she  lacked.  Yes, 
years!  It  is  an  idea  and  it  is  certainly  a  situation. 
This  is  no  place  to  give  away  a  denouement  but — 
they  are  brought  together  again. 

An  idea  just  as  ingenious  is  the  foundation  of  Mrs. 
Porter's  amusing  Oh,  Money!  Money!  It  is  the  at 
tempt  of  Mr.  Stanley  G.  Fulton,  possessor  of  twenty 
millions  of  dollars,  to  find  out  how  some  of  his 
heirs  will  spend  money  after  he  is  dead.  They  are 
three  distant  cousins  and  each  of  them  receives  a 


ELEANOR  H.  PORTER  119 

trustee's  check  for  $100,000.  Then  plain  John 
Smith  appears  among  them  and  watches  results.  He 
also  learns  a  thing  or  two  and  .finds  a  wife  in  a  wo 
man  of  middle  age  (or  more)  whose  humorous  wisdom 
is  aptly  summed  up  by  her  remark  that  "if  you  don't 
know  how  to  get  happiness  out  of  five  dollars,  you 
won't  know  how  to  get  it  out  of  five  thousand.  For 
it  isn't  "the  money  that  does  things;  it's  the  man  be 
hind  the  money." 

Sell?  Of  course  books  like  this  sell!  You  don't 
have  to  be  a  psychologist  to  grasp  and  subscribe  to 
the  six  reasons  for  a  big  sale,  advanced  by  the  pub 
lishers  just  before  the  publication  of  Oh,  Money! 
Money! — six  reasons  whose  validity  has  been  suffi 
ciently  proved  as  these  lines  are  being  written,  with 
proofs  piling  up  hour  by  hour.  Here  they  are: 

1.  It  deals   with   the  most   interesting  subject   in 
the  world — the  getting  and  spending  of  money. 

2.  The  story  of  three  families — cousins — who  un 
expectedly  receive  $100,000  each  from  an  unknown 
relative,    will    strike    a    responsive    chord    in    every 
reader's  heart  and  set  every  reader  thinking  how  he 
would  spend  the  money. 

3.  It  has  the  same  quality  that  has  made  Cinder 
ella  the  most  popular  of  all  fairy  tales,  the  joy  of 
watching  a  girl  who  has  never  been   fairly  treated 
come  out  on  top  in  spite  of  all  odds. 

4.  The  scene  is  laid  in  a  little  village  and  the  whole 
book  is  a  gem  of  country  life  and  shrewd  Yankee 
philosophy. 

5.  There  is  a  charming  love  theme  with  a  happy 
ending. 


120  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

6.  And,  above  all,  the  story  teaches  an  unobtru 
sive  lesson  that  will  appeal  to  every  one  of  Mrs. 
Porter's  readers;  the  lesson  that  happiness  must  come 
from  within,  and  that  money  cannot  buy  it. 

They  are  invincible,  unassailable,  these  arguments, 
for  they  are  facts.  Equally  invincible,  equally  un 
assailable,  equally  a  big  fact  to  be  taken  into  any 
reckoning  of  living  American  writers,  is  Eleanor 
Hodgman  Porter. 

BOOKS  BY  ELEANOR  H.  PORTER 

Cross  Currents,  1907. 

The  Turn  of  the  Tide,  1908. 

The  Story  of  Marco,  1911. 

Miss  Billy,  1911. 

Miss  Billy's  Decision,  1912. 

Polly  anna,  1913. 

Miss  Billy — Married,  1914. 

Polly  anna  Grows  Up,  1915. 

Just  David,  1916. 

The  Road  to  Understanding,  1917. 

Oh,  Money!  Money!  1918. 

Dawn,  1919. 

The  first  two  books  were  published  by  W.  A.  Wilde, 
Boston;  the  books  about  Miss  Billy  and  Pollyanna  by 
the  Page  Company,  Boston;  the  last  four  books  by 
Houghton  MiMin  Company,  Boston. 


CHAPTER  X 

KATE    DOUGLAS    WIGGIN" 

ONCE  Kate  Douglas  Wiggin,  at  a  fair  held  in 
the  grounds  of  Lord  Darnley,  in  County 
Meath,  Ireland,  visited  a  crystal  gazer  "im 
ported  from  Dublin  for  the  occasion." 

"You  have  many  children,"  said  the  seer. 

"I  have  no  children,"  Mrs.  Wiggin  replied. 

"But  I  see  them;  they  are  coming,  still  coming.  O, 
so  many  little  ones;  they  are  clinging  to  you;  you 
are  surrounded  by  them,"  the  woman  declared,  her 
eyes  on  the  ball.  "They  are  children  of  a  relative? 
No?  ...  I  cannot  understand.  I  see  them" 

They  left  her  puzzled  and  frowning.  Perhaps  she 
never  will  know  how  wonderfully  right  was  her  vi 
sion. 

"Little,  lame  Patsy  and  the  angelic  Carol;  the 
mirth-provoking  tribe  of  the  Ruggleses;  brave 
Timothy  and  bewitching  Lady  Gay;  pathetic  Marm 
Lisa  and  the  incorrigible  twins,  Atlantic  and  Pacific 
Simonson;  blithe  Polly  Oliver,  with  her  genius  for 
story-telling;  winsome  Rebecca  and  the  faithful 
Emma  Jane, — all  these  figures  crowd  about  us,  and 
claim  their  places  as  everybody's  children." 

It  is  impossible  to  read  Kate  Douglas  Wiggin, 
think  of  her  or  write  about  her  without  emotion,  the 

121 


122  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

kind  of  emotion  that  it  is  good  to  feel.  The  world 
is  a  brighter  world  because  she  has  lived  in  it,  a 
better  world  because  she  has  written  for  it.  Does  this 
sound  horribly  trite?  Nothing  is  trite  which  is  deeply 
felt  and  words,  though  they  may  indicate  the  channel, 
can  with  difficulty  measure  the  depth  or  gauge  the 
emotional  flow.  You  who  have  lost  your  enthusiasm 
with  your  illusions,  you  whose  channels  of  feeling 
have  trickled  dry,  you  who  live  in  a  desert  whose 
aridity  responds  only  to  intellectual  dry  farming — 
keep  off  this  chapter!  But  all  of  you  millions  who 
love  children,  who  like  simple  and  durable  humor, 
who  are  not  too  far  from  laughter  or  tears,  who  are 
not  ashamed  of  tenderness,  do  you,  one  and  all 
(there  are  countless  millions  of  you!)  stay  with  us 
for  a  half  hour! 

Kate  Douglas  Wiggin,  born  a  Smith,  came  of  New 
England  stock  that  bred  teachers  and  preachers  and 
law-givers  and  developed  those  humane  traits  which 
make  charitable  effort  and  philanthropism  a  matter 
of  course,  like  prayer  or  the  pie  which  Emerson  pre 
ferred  for  breakfast.  She  happens  to  have  been  born 
in  Philadelphia,  September  28,  1859,  the  daughter  of 
Robert  N.  Smith,  and  Helen  E.  (Dyer)  Smith,  but 
all  her  youth  was  spent  east  of  the  New  York  line. 
A  rural  childhood;  then  the  fine  old  school  for  girls 
called  Abbott  Academy,  at  Andover,  Massachusetts. 
At  eighteen  her  step-father's  health  made  imperative 
a  removal  to  California.  After  her  graduation  at 
Andover  Kate  Smith  joined  the  family  in  Santa  Bar 
bara.  She  had  been  trained  to  teach  children;  she 
was  a  mere  girl  when  she  was  called  to  direct 


KATE  DOUGLAS  WIGGIN  123 

the  famous  Silver  Street  kindergartens  of  San 
Francisco.  Through  her  efforts  it  was  that 
the  first  free  kindergartens  for  poor  children 
were  organized  in  California.  She  knew  the  methods 
of  Froebel  and  has  done  as  much  as  any  one  in  this 
country  to  secure  their  spread  and  adoption.  First 
as  a  kindergartner  and  then  as  a  training  teacher  her 
enthusiasm,  her  gift  for  leadership,  her  personal 
charm  made  others,  young  and  old,  her  devoted  friends. 
For  the  babies  of  Tar  Flat  and  the  Barbary  Coast 
and  for  the  young  women  of  cultivation  who 
sought  to  become  teachers  she  had  the  same  fas 
cination.  She  is  irresistible;  if  she  were  not  she  could 
not  be  liked  and  loved  in  New  England  as  she  is  at 
this  day.  Who  else  could  gather  the  neighbors  in 
Old  Buxton  Meeting-House  to  hear,  read  aloud  to 
them  by  the  author  from  the  manuscript,  stories  of 
themselves  and  their  apparently  unremarkable  doings  ? 
With  any  one  but  Mrs.  Wiggin  the  audience  would 
be  self-conscious,  detestably  uncomfortable.  But  she 
is  so  soft-voiced,  so  agreeable;  she  has  so  much  sym 
pathy  and  humor,  is  so  pleasant  to  look  upon,  is,  in 
short,  so  "nice"  and  so  neighborly  that  self -conscious 
ness  is  out  of  the  question.  Besides,  you  can  be  proud 
of  her.  .  .  .  And  you  are. 

Old  Buxton  Meeting-House  is  in  Maine,  and  it  is 
in  Maine,  in  the  village  of  Hollis,  that  the  people  of 
whom  Mrs.  Wiggin  writes  grow  into  being.  Her 
home  is  called  Quillcote  and  from  a  cool  green  study 
where  she  works  she  can  hear  the  song  of  the  Saco 
River  and  look  through  latticed  windows  by  her  desk 
to  where  the  shining  weather-vane,  a  golden  quill, 


124  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

swings  on  the  roof  of  the  old  barn.  It  is  a  quaint 
and  ancient  dwelling  of  colonial  date  and  colonial 
style  set  among  arching  elms.  The  village  is  not  a 
summer  resort  but  a  dreaming  settlement  on  the 
banks  of  the  Saco.  As  it  flows  past  the  Quillcote 
elms  the  river  widens  into  a  lake.  A  few  rods  below 
the  house  it  has  a  fall.  Below  the  fall  for  a  mile 
or  so  there  is  "foaming,  curving,  prancing  white 
water."  It  is  the  Saco,  placid  and  turbulent,  which 
runs  through  Timothy's  Quest  and  Rebecca  and  Rose 
o'  the  River. 

Quillcote's  important  structure,  like  the  home  of  H. 
G.  Wells's  Mr.  Britling,  is  the  barn.  We  can  be 
lieve  that  the  builder  would  not  recognize  it,  aside 
from  the  weather-vane.  It  is  what,  in  the  jargon  of 
the  day,  is  known  as  a  "community  center."  Years 
ago  all  the  interior  was  ripped  out.  A  new  floor  was 
laid,  casement  windows  were  cut  in  and  the  place 
took  on  the  semblance  of  a  rustic  hall.  Alone  untam- 
pered  with,  the  great  century-old  rafters,  hewn  of 
stout-hearted  oak  and  strong  as  ever,  remain  in  posi 
tion.  The  barn  walls  were  brushed  down  but  left 
their  hue  of  tawny  brown.  Other  old  barns  were 
stripped  to  supply  fish-hook  hinges,  suitably  antique; 
ancient  latches,  decorative  horns  of  the  moose.  Solid 
settles  were  constructed  of  old  boards  weathered  to 
a  silver  gray.  Old  lanterns  fitted  with  candles  were 
hung  from  harness  pegs  about  the  walls.  The  old 
grain-chest,  piled  high  with  cushions,  stands  at  one 
end  of  the  big  oblong  room.  "Wide  doors  open  at  the 
back  into  a  field  of  buttercups  and  daisies."  They 
still  dance  the  square  dances  on  the  threshing  floor. 


KATE  DOUGLAS  WIGGIN  125 

Biography  is  pointless  if  it  does  not  build  us  a 
picture;  and  once  we  have  our  picture  who  cares  for 
dates  and  a  chronicle  of  the  years?  In  the  girl  in 
New  England,  the  young  woman  kindergartner  in 
San  Francisco,  the  visitor  to  Ireland  (and  England 
and  Scotland),  the  writer  reading  from  her  manu 
script  in  Old  Buxton  Meeting-House,  the  festival- 
bringer  of  the  Quillcote  barn  you  have  Kate  Douglas 
Wiggin,  born  a  Smith;  you  have  very  completely  and 
with  a  delightful  authenticity  the  creator  of  all  those 
hosts  of  happy  children,  children  sometimes  sad,  some 
times  grieved  but  always  as  certain  of  happiness  as  they 
are  of  sunshine; — you  have  the  Penelope  who  found 
the  humors  of  foreign  travel  which  more  pretentious 
humorists  coming  later  could  merely  copy;  you  have 
the  perceptive  and  sympathetic  heart  which  saw  the 
Christmas  romance  of  The  Old  Peabody  Pew.  You 
ask  no  more.  You  ask  only  to  be  allowed  to  recall 
with  a  changing  but  invariable  pleasure  the  dozens  of 
tales  in  which  she  has  shared  with  you  her  feelings 
about  life. 

Do  you  remember  the  Penelope  books?  Do  you 
remember!  Somehow,  Penelope's  Progress,  wherein 
we  accompany  Salemina,  Francesca  and  Penelope 
through  Scotland,  has  always  seemed  a  bit  the  best. 
Page  2,  please : 

"On  arriving  in  New  York,  Francesca  discovered 
that  the  young  lawyer  whom  for  six  months  she  had 
been  advising  to  marry  somebody  'more  worthy  than 
herself  was  at  last  about  to  do  it.  This  was  some 
what  in  the  nature  of  a  shock,  for  Francesca  has  been 
in  the  habit,  ever  since  she  was  seventeen,  of  giving 


126  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

her  lovers  similar  advice,  and  up  to  this  time  no  one 
of  them  has  ever  taken  it.  She  therefore  has  had  the 
not  unnatural  hope,  I  think,  of  organizing  at  one  time 
or  another  all  those  disappointed  and  faithful  swains 
into  a  celibate  brotherhood;  and  perhaps  of  driving 
by  the  interesting  monastery  with  her  husband  and 
calling  his  attention  modestly  to  the  fact  that  these 
poor  monks  were  filling  their  barren  lives  with  deeds 
of  piety,  trying  to  remember  their  Creator  with  such 
assiduity  that  they  might,  in  time,  forget  Her." 

Frank  Stockton  could  be  as  funny  as  that.  Mark 
Twain  might  have  written  the  close  of  the  first  chap 
ter,  where  Francesca  and  Penelope,  heads  bent  over 
a  genealogical  table  of  the  English  kings,  try  to  decide 
whether  "b.  1665"  means  born  or  beheaded.  Irvin 
Cobb,  shaking  our  sides  with  his  discussion  of  Eng 
lish  pronunciation  of  proper  names,  and  gravely  re 
ferring  to  a  Norwegian  fjord  ("pronounced  by  the 
English,  Ferguson")  was  anticipated  by  nearly  twenty 
years  when  Mrs.  Wiggin  wrote : 

"On  the  ground  floor  are  the  Misses  Hepburn- 
Sciennes  (pronounced  Hebburn-Sheens)  ;  on  the  floor 
above  us  are  Miss  Colquhoun  (Cohoon)  and  her 
cousin  Miss  Cockburn-Sinclair  (Coburn-Sinkler).  As 
soon  as  the  Hepburn-Sciennes  depart,  Mrs.  M'Collop 
expects  Mrs.  Menzies  of  Kilconquhar,  of  whom  we 
shall  speak  as  Mrs.  Mingess  of  Kinyukkar." 

Marm  Lisa  is  graced  with  the  presence  of  S.  Cora 
Grubb,  as  well  as  the  youthful  Atlantic  and  Pacific 
Simonson.  Have  we  not  yet  with  us  such  places  as 
Mrs.  Grubb's  Unity  Hall,  the  Meeting-Place  of  the 
Order  of  Present  Perfection?  We  have.  On  the  wall 


KATE  DOUGLAS  WIGGIN  127 

was  "an  ingenious  pictorial  representation  of  the  fifty 
largest  cities  of  the  world,  with  the  successful  estab 
lishment  of  various  regenerating  ideas  indicated  by 
colored  disks  of  paper  neatly  pasted  on  the  surface." 
Blue  was  for  Temperance,  green  for  the  Single  Tax, 
orange,  Cremation;  red,  Abolition  of  War;  purple, 
Vegetarianism;  yellow,  Hypnotism;  black,  Dress  Re 
form;  blush  rose,  Social  Purity;  silver,  Theosophy; 
magenta,  Religious  Liberty;  and,  somewhat  inappro 
priately,  crushed  strawberry  denoted  that  in  this  spot 
the  Emancipation  of  Women  had  made  a  forward 
stride.  It  was  left  for  a  small  gold  star  to  signify  the 
progress  of  the  Eldorado  face  powder,  S.  Cora  Grubb, 
sole  agent. 

The  cat  'Zekiel  in  The  Old  Peabody  Pew: 

"  'Zekiel  had  lost  his  tail  in  a  mowing-machine ; 
'Zekiel  had  the  asthma,  and  the  immersion  of  his  nose 
in  milk  made  him  sneeze,  so  he  was  wont  to  slip  his 
paw  in  and  out  of  the  dish  and  lick  it  patiently  for  five 
minutes  together.  Nancy  often  watched  him  pity 
ingly,  giving  him  kind  and  gentle  words  to  sustain  his 
fainting  spirit,  but  to-night  she  paid  no  heed  to  him, 
although  he  sneezed  violently  to  attract  her  attention." 

The  sensation  when,  after  the  ringing  of  the  last 
bell,  Nafticy  Wentworth  walked  up  the  aisle  on  Justin 
Peabody's  arm,  is  conveyed  by  some  parentheses  of 
the  comment  later  in  the  day.  The  two  had  taken  their 
seats  side  by  side  in  the  old  family  pew. 

"('And  consid'able  close,  too,  though  there  was 
plenty  o'  room!') 

"('And  no  one  that  I  ever  heard  of  so  much  as  sus- 
picioned  that  they  had  ever  kept  company!') 


128  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

"('And  do  you  s'pose  she  knew  Justin  was  expected 
back  when  she  scrubbed  his  pew  a-Friday?') 

"('And  this  explains  the  empty  pulpit  vases!') 

"('And  I  always  said  that  Nancy  would  make  a 
real  handsome  couple  if  she  ever  got  anybody  to 
couple  with!')" 

The  boastful  old  man,  Tumble  Wiley,  in  Rose  o' 
the  River: 

"  'I  remember  once  I  was  smokin'  my  pipe  when  a 
jam  broke  under  me.  'Twas  a  small  jam,  or  what 
we  call  a  small  jam  on  the  Kennebec, — only  about 
three  hundred  thousand  pine  logs.  The  first  thing  I 
•knowed,  I  was  shootin'  back  an'  forth  in  the  b'ilin' 
foam,  hangin'  on  t'  the  end  of  a  log  like  a  spider. 
My  hands  was  clasped  round  the  log,  and  I  never  lost 
control  o'  my  pipe.  They  said  I  smoked  right  along, 
jest  as  cool  an'  placid  as  a  pond-lily/ 

"  'Why'd  you  quit  drivin'  ?'  inquired  Ivory. 

"  'My  strength  wa'n't  ekal  to  it,'  Mr.  Wiley  re 
sponded  sadly.  'I  was  all  skin,  bones,  an'  nerve.  .  .  . 

"  'I've  tried  all  kinds  o'  labor.  Some  of  'em  don't 
suit  my  liver,  some  disagrees  with  my  stomach,  and 
the  rest  of  'em  has  vibrations.' ' 

In  January,  1911,  over  2,000,000  copies  of  Mrs. 
Wiggin's  books  had  been  sold;  to-day  the  total  is 
probably  approaching  3,000,000.  The  most  popular 
of  her  books  is  Rebecca  of  Sunnybrook  Farm,  which 
has  been  likened,  in  explanation  of  its  popularity,  to 
Little  Women.  But  no  explanation  is  necessary.  Re 
becca  is  entirely,  naturally  human.  Whether  she  is 
perplexing  her  aunts  or  telling  Miss  Dearborn  that 


KATE  DOUGLAS  WIGGIN  129 

she  can't  write  about  nature  and  slavery,  having  really 
nothing  to  say  about  either;  whether  she  is  making 
her  report  on  the  missionaries'  children  "all  born  un 
der  Syrian  skies,"  or  aweing  Emma  Jane  with  original 
ideas,  or  helping  the  Simpsons,  with  the  aid  of  Mr. 
Aladdin,  to  acquire  a  wonderful  lamp; — at  all  times, 
at  every  moment  Rebecca  Rowena  Randall  reminds 
us  of  the  youngsters  we  have  known,  and  perhaps,  a 
little,  of  the  youngsters  we  were  once  ourselves. 

The  triumph  of  naturalness,  the  perfect  fidelity  to 
the  life  of  the  child;  these  explain  Rebecca  and  Rebec 
ca's  success,  signalized  less  in  the  selling  of  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  copies,  in  the  acting  of  the  play  made 
from  the  book  for  months  and  months  and  months, 
than  in  the  joyous  recognition  with  which  Mrs.  Wig- 
gin's  heroine  was  greeted.  Rebecca  inditing  the 
couplet : 

"When  Joy  and  Duty  clash 
Let  Duty  go  to  smash" — 

Rebecca  playing  on  the  tinkling  old  piano,  "Wild 
roved  an  Indian  girl,  bright  Alfarata,"  Rebecca  doing 
this,  thinking  that,  saying  the  thing  that  needs  to  be 
said — generous,  romantic,  resourceful  and  brighter 
than  her  surroundings — is  a  person  it  does  us  all  good 
to  know.  Copies  of  the  book  in  libraries  are  read  to 
shreds.  The  world,  which  can  see  through  any  sham, 
loves  this  story.  The  world  is  right.  To  learn,  in 
the  words  of  one  of  Conrad's  heroes,  to  live,  to  love 
and  to  put  your  trust  in  life  is  all  that  matters.  Mrs. 
Wiggin  shows  us  how. 


130  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

BOOKS  BY  KATE  DOUGLAS  WIGGIN 

The  Birds'  Christmas  Carol,  1886. 

The  Story  of  Patsy,  1889. 

A  Summer  in  a  Canyon,  1889. 

Timothy's  Quest,  1890. 

The  Story  Hour,  1890.     (With  Nora  A.  Smith,  her 
sister.) 

Children's  Rights,  1892.    (With  Nora  A.  Smith.) 

A  Cathedral  Courtship  and  Penelope's  English  Ex 
periences,  1893. 

Polly  Oliver's  Problem,  1893. 

The  Village  Watch-Tower,  1895. 

Froebel's  Gifts,  1895.    (With  Nora  A.  Smith.) 

Froebel's    Occupations,    1896.       (With    Nora   A. 
Smith.) 

Kindergarten  Principles  and  Practice,  1896.    (With 
Nora  A.  Smith.) 

Marm  Lisa,  1896. 

Nine  Love  Songs,  And  A  Carol,  1896.     (Music  by 
Mrs.  Wiggin  to  words  by  Herrick,  Sill,  and  others.) 

Penelope's  Progress,  1898. 

Penelope's  Scottish  Experiences,  1900. 

Penelope's  Irish  Experiences,  1901. 

The  Diary  of  a  Goose  Girl,  1902. 

Rebecca  of  Sunnybrook  Farm,  1903. 

The  Affair  at  the  Inn,  1904.    (With  Mary  and  Jane 
Findlater  and  Allan  McAulay.) 
"Rose  o'  the  River,  1905. 

New  Chronicles  of  Rebecca,  1907. 

Finding  a  Home,  1907. 

The  Flag  Raising,  1907. 


KATE  DOUGLAS  WIGGIN  131 

The  Old  Peabody  Pew,  1907. 
Susanna  and  Sue,  1909. 

Robinetta,  1911.     (With  Mary  and  Jane  Findlater 
and  Allan  McAulay.) 

Mother  Carey's  Chickens,  1911. 

'A  Child's  Journey  With  Dickens,  1912. 

The  Story  of  Waitstill  Baxter,  1913. 

Penelope's  Postscripts,  1915. 

The  Romance  of  a  Christmas  Card,  1916. 

Golden  Numbers,  1917. 

The  Posy  Ring,  1917. 

Published  by  Houghton  Mifflin  Company,  Boston 


CHAPTER    XI 


DIDN'T  you  ever  notice,  Aunt  Lucy,"  asks 
Molly  Gary  on  page  32  of  Mary  John 
ston's  novel,  The  Long  Roll,  "how  every 
body  really  belongs  in  a  book?" 

It  is  the  very  question  Mary  Johnston  herself  has 
been  asking  these  twenty  years,  ever  since  Prisoners 
of  Hope  announced  to  the  world  the  advent  of  a  new 
American  writer,  a  woman,  to  whom  it  would  be  nec 
essary  to  pay  respectful  attention,  to  whom  it  would 
be  wise  to  give  that  special  admiration  reserved  for 
the  artist  regardless  of  sex  or  nativity.  Everybody 
really  does  belong  in  a  book,  especially  Mary  John 
ston  in  a  book  upon  American  women  novelists!  Pre 
pare,  then,  for  a  discursive  chapter.  Prepare  to  con 
sider  literary  genius.  Miss  Johnston  has  something, 
or  several  things,  which  no  amount  of  analysis  can 
entirely  label  and  no  consideration  of  circumstances 
wholly  account  for. 

She  is  the  most  dramatic  of  American  women  writ 
ers.  Do  you  remember  the  ending  of  the  first  chap 
ter  of  To  Have  and  To  Hold?  A  shipload  of  maidens, 
"fair  and  chaste,  but  meanly  born,"  has  arrived  at 
Jamestown,  Virginia,  in  the  early  days  of  that  set 
tlement.  A  friend  traveling  by  has  told  Ralph  Percy 

132 


MARY  JOHNSTON  133 

about  it  and  counseled  him  to  go  to  town  and  get  him 
a  wife.  Percy  rejects  the  idea,  but  his  friend  passing 
on  he  finds  himself  alone  and  lonely  in  a  cheerless 
house.  He  tries  to  read  Master  Shakespeare's  plays 
and  cannot.  Idly  he  begins  dicing.  His  mind  goes  back 
to  the  English  manorhouse  that  had  been  his  home. 

"To-morrow  would  be  my  thirty-sixth  birthday. 
All  the  numbers  that  I  cast  were  high.  'If  I  throw 
ambs-ace,'  I  said,  with  a  smile  for  my  own  caprice, 
'curse  me  if  I  do  not  take  Rolfe's  advice!' 

"I  shook  the  box  and  clapped  it  down  upon  the 
table,  then  lifted  it,  and  stared  with  a  lengthening 
face  at  what  it  had  hidden;  which  done,  I  diced  no 
more,  but  put  out  my  lights  and  went  soberly  to  bed." 

Still  more  dramatic  because  it  makes  a  greater  de 
mand  upon  the  reader's  imagination,  requiring  him  to 
picture  for  himself  the  ceaseless  self-torture  of  a  mur 
derer,  is  the  ending  of  Lewis  Rand.  Rand  has  killed 
Ludwell  Gary  and  has  not  been  found  out.  At  length 
he  walks  into  the  sheriff's  office.  When  the  news  gets 
abroad  "the  boy  who  minded  the  sheriff's  door  found 
himself  a  hero,  and  the  words  treasured  that  fell  from 
his  tongue."  The  last  words  of  the  book  are  as  fol 
lows: 

"  'Fairfax  Gary  [brother  of  the  slain  man]  was 
in  the  court  room  yesterday  when  he  [Rand]  was 
committed.  He  [Fairfax  Gary]  and  Lewis  Rand 
spoke  to  each  other,  but  no  one  heard  what  they  said.' 

"The  boy  came  to  the  front  again.  'I  didn't  hear 
much  that  morning  before  Mr.  Garrett  [the  sheriff] 
sent  me  away,  but  I  heard  why  he  [Rand]  gave  him 
self  up.  I  thought  it  wasn't  much  of  a  reason ' 


I34  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

"The  crowd  pressed  closer,  'What  was  it,  Michael, 
what  was  it?' 

"  'It  sounds  foolish/  answered  the  boy,  'but  I've  got 
it  right.  He  said  he  must  have  sleep.' ' 

The  funeral  of  Stonewall  Jackson  in  the  last  pages 
of  The  Long  Roll: 

"Beneath  arching  trees,  by  houses  of  mellow  red 
brick,  houses  of  pale  gray  stucco,  by  old  porches  and 
ironwork  balconies,  by  wistaria  and  climbing  roses  and 
magnolias  with  white  chalices,  the  long  procession 
bore  Stonewall  Jackson.  By  St.  Paul's  they  bore  him, 
by  Washington  and  the  great  bronze  men  in  his  com 
pany,  by  Jefferson  and  Marshall,  by  Henry  and  Ma 
son,  by  Lewis  and  Nelson.  They  bore  him  over  the 
greensward  to  the  Capitol  steps,  and  there  the  hearse 
stopped.  Six  generals  lifted  the  coffin,  Longstreet 
going  before.  The  bells  tolled  and  the  Dead  March 
rang,  and  all  the  people  on  the  green  slopes  of  the  his 
toric  place  uncovered  their  heads  and  wept.  The  cof 
fin,  high-borne,  passed  upward  and  between  the  great, 
white,  Doric  columns.  It  passed  into  the  Capitol  and 
into  the  Hall  of  the  Lower  House.  Here  it  rested 
before  the  Speaker's  Chair. 

"All  day  Stonewall  Jackson  lay  in  state.  Twenty 
thousand  people,  from  the  President  of  the  Confed 
eracy  to  the  last  poor  wounded  soldier  who  could 
creep  hither,  passed  before  the  bier,  looked  upon  the 
calm  face,  the  flag-enshrouded  form,  lying  among 
lilies  before  the  Speaker's  Chair,  in  the  Virginia  Hall 
of  Delegates,  in  the  Capitol  of  the  Confederacy.  All 
day  the  bells  tolled,  all  day  the  minute  guns  were  fired. 

"A  man  of  the  Stonewall  Brigade,  pausing  his  mo- 


MARY  JOHNSTON  135 

ment  before  the  dead  leader,  first  bent,  then  lifted  his 
head.  He  was  a  scout,  a  blonde  soldier,  tall  and 
strong,  with  a  quiet,  studious  face  and  sea-blue  eyes. 
He  looked  now  at  the  vaulted  roof  as  though  he  saw 
instead  the  sky.  He  spoke  in  a  controlled,  determined 
voice.  'What  Stonewall  Jackson  always  said  was 
just  this :  "Press  forward!" '  He  passed  on. 

"Presently  in  line  came  a  private  soldier  of  A.  P. 
Hill's,  a  young  man  like  a  beautiful  athlete  from  a 
frieze,  an  athlete  who  was  also  a  philosopher.  'Hail, 
great  man  of  the  past !'  he  said.  'If  to-day  you  consort 
with  Caesar,  tell  him  we  still  make  war.'  He,  too, 
went  on. 

"Others  passed,  and  then  there  came  an  artillery 
man,  a  gunner  of  the  Horse  Artillery.  Gray-eyed, 
broad-browed,  he  stood  his  moment  and  gazed  upon 
the  dead  soldier  among  the  lilies.  'Hooker  yet  upon 
the  Rappahannock,'  he  said.  'We  must  have  him 
across  the  Potomac,  and  we  must  ourselves  invade 
Pennsylvania.'  " 

So  ends  the  book  with  a  dramatic  height  which  it  is 
not  in  human  power  to  surpass  because  it  ends  noth 
ing.  We  forget  rather  frequently  that  it  is  of  the 
essence  of  drama  that  things  go  on.  A  play  or  a  book 
which  leaves  us  with  the  sense  of  utter  completion, 
with  the  feeling  that  nothing  more  happens  or  can 
happen,  falls  short  of  the  highest  dramatic  effect  which 
is  that  of  continuity  of  life  and  action,  with  various 
events — bitter,  happy,  tragic  and  glorious — marking 
so  many  stages  of  an  unending  record.  The  last  words 
of  The  Long  Roll  are  worthy  of  the  greatest  of  Miss 
Johnston's  tales. 


136  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

The  sense  of  the  dramatic  cannot  be  acquired.  It 
must  be  born  in  a  writer  and  if  he  have  it  he  will  apply 
it  unfailingly  to  all  possible  material  that  comes  his 
way.  Miss  Johnston's  possession  of  this  sense  is  one 
element  of  her  genius — perhaps  the  most  important. 
The  second  element  is  her  creative  imagination,  equal 
ly  innate.  To  have  to  use  terms  of  this  sort  is  a  pity, 
but  let  us  see  just  what  her  "creative  imagination"  is. 

If  you  will  turn  to  her  book  The  Wanderers  you 
will  find  that  it  is  a  series  of  nineteen  chapters,  each 
unrelated  to  the  others  except  in  the  underlying  theme, 
the  relationship  of  men  and  women.  This  relation 
ship  is  pictured  at  various  times  and  places  in  the 
world's  history,  from  the  period  when  the  human  race 
knew  not  the  uses  of  fire  to  the  days  of  the  French 
Revolution.  Now  for  the  earlier  chapters  of  this 
book  there  were  no  historical  records  to  which  Miss 
Johnston  could  turn  for  an  idea  of  how  men  and 
women  lived  in  those  days;  she  is  dealing  with  ages 
before  recorded  history  began.  No  doubt  she  got 
what  she  could  out  of  the  scientists,  the  anthropolo 
gists  and  others  who  seek  for  the  truth  of  the  human 
race's  beginnings.  But  scientific  facts,  head  measure 
ments,  skull  conformations,  ingenious  theories  based 
on  the  cave  man's  drawings,  are  one  thing  and  a  pic 
ture  of  life  as  it  was  lived  tens  of  thousands  of  years 
ago  is  quite  another.  How  evoke  the  picture? 

Well,  we  can't  tell  you  how  it  is  done,  for  if  that 
could  be  told  the  manner  could  be  copied  and  we 
should  many  of  us  be  able  to  write  such  chapters  as 
open  The  Wanderers.  All  we  can  be  certain  of  is 
this,  that  Miss  Johnston  was  able  to  place  herself  in 


MARY  JOHNSTON  137 

the  surroundings  of  a  primitive  woman  of  the  tree- 
folk — so  much  was  the  first  imaginative  step.  And 
having  taken  this  first  step  she  was  able  to  create  the 
moments  and  hours  of  that  creature's  existence,  to 
imagine  her  thoughts  and  her  actions  with  respect  to 
the  things  about  her.  That  is  what  we  mean  by  crea 
tive  imagination.  There  is  a  good  deal  less  of  it  in 
story-telling  than  is  generally  supposed.  For  the  world 
has  no  idea  of  the  extent  to  which  novels  and  tales 
of  all  kinds  are  merely  autobiographical,  or  reminis 
cent  of  scenes  and  persons,  emotions  and  traits,  once 
known.  What  is  recalled  is  not  imagined  nor  even 
invented.  A  person  may  be  lifelike,  wonderfully 
done,  convincing,  typical,  true,  and  yet  not  be  any 
thing  but  a  patchwork  from  an  actual  past.  He  is 
neither  imagined  nor  created  and  a  certain  amount 
of  re-creation  involving  only  a  small  amount  of  imag 
ination,  or  even  none  at  all,  is  the  only  actual  contri 
bution  of  his  author. 

All  this  is  very  didactic  but  inescapable  in  the  con 
sideration  of  a  serious  artist  like  Mary  Johnston.  She 
has  the  acutely  dramatic  sense,  she  has  imagination 
and  a  creative  imagination  at  that;  what  else  has  she? 
Nothing  that  may  not  be  gained  by  the  most  patient 
striving.  These  two  qualities,  these  two  never-to-be- 
acquired  gifts,  these  two  born  endowments  are  the  sole 
attributes  of  literary  genius.  All  the  rest — an  almost 
boundless  capacity  for  study,  for  digging  up  detail, 
for  documenting  one's  self;  a  racy  and  enriched  style; 
a  faculty  for  reading  the  essentials  of  character  and 
putting  them  sharply  on  paper ;  a  knack  at  humor  skill 
fully  distilled  throughout  the  pages;  a  mastery  of 


138  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

poignancy  and  the  art  of  touching  to  tears — these  are 
to  be  had  for  taking  pains,  infinite  and  unresting 
pains.  It  may  be  said  that  they  will  never  be  gained 
without  the  possession  of  a  conscience  scrupulous  to 
the  wth  degree  and  that  such  a  conscience  must  be 
born  in  one.  True,  but  thousands  have  it.  They  be 
come  fine  artists,  we  acknowledge  them  as  such;  but 
confuse  them  with  the  geniuses  we  never  do! 

Well,  but !  exclaims  the  reader,  granted  Miss  John 
ston's  genius,  let  us  see  the  woman !  At  once,  at  once ! 
with  the  preliminary  caution  that  interesting  and  in 
structive  as  the  picture  will  be  the  inexplicable  will 
be  always  a  part  of  it.  Why,  we  think  we  have  made 
clear.  Abandoning  further  transcendentalism  let  us 
turn  our  eyes  to  Virginia. 

The  Long  Roll  starts  with  the  reading  of  the  Bote- 
tourt  Resolutions  and  it  was  in  Buchanan,  a  village 
of  Botetourt  county,  Virginia,  that  Mary  Johnston, 
the  daughter  of  John  William  Johnston  and  Elizabeth 
Alexander  Johnston,  was  born  on  November  21,  1870. 
The  Blue  Ridge  Mountains  shadowed  the  town,  which 
had  been  partly  burned  some  six  years  earlier,  the 
home  of  the  Johnstons  being  one  of  many  destroyed 
by  the  sweep  of  civil  war.  Three  miles  away  ran  a 
railroad.  A  stage-coach  and  canal  boats  joined  Bu 
chanan  of  the  '705  to  the  rest  of  the  State  and  coun 
try.  The  village  is  unrecognizable  now.  It  had  a 
boom.  There  are  two  railroads.  The  old  homes  are 
in  decay.  The  old  families  are  spread  afar. 

The  girl  was  frail  and  had  to  be  educated  at  home. 
Her  grandmother,  a  Scotchwoman,  first  taught  her 
and  afterward  an  aunt  took  her  in  hand.  Major 


MARY  JOHNSTON  139 

Johnston  had  a  sizable  library  in  which  his  daughter 
conducted  her  own  explorations.  Histories  fascinated 
her.  As  she  grew  older  governesses  were  employed. 
She  did  not  go  to  school  until  she  was  sixteen  and 
then  for  less  than  three  months.  The  family  had  just 
moved  to  Birmingham,  Alabama,  at  the  behest  of  the 
father's  business  and  professional  interests.  Miss 
Johnston  had  been  packed  off  to  a  finishing  school  in 
Atlanta.  Her  health  could  not  stand  it  and  she  was 
brought  home  where,  a  year  later,  her  mother  died. 

Major  Johnston,  a  lawyer  and  ex-member  of  the 
Virginia  Legislature,  was  interested  in  Southern  rail 
roads  and  had  a  hand  in  the  beginnings  of  some  of 
the  business  enterprises  which  give  Birmingham  its 
present  industrial  importance.  The  death  of  the 
mother  left  him  with  several  children  of  whom  Mary 
Johnston  was  the  eldest.  Upon  her  fell  the  direction 
of  the  household.  It  has  been  thought  worthy  of  re 
mark,  in  view  of  Miss  Johnston's  activities  as  a  suf 
fragist,  that  she  can  keep  house.  She  has  not  done  so 
in  later  years  for  the  very  good  reason  that  she  has 
not  had  to.  We  come  to  that  a  little  later,  however. 

Her  writing  was  for  some  time  done  at  no  particu 
lar  hour  and  in  no  especial  place,  but  a  good  deal  of 
it  in  the  open  air.  Her  first  novel,  Prisoners  of  Hope, 
published  when  she  was  twenty-eight,  was  begun  while 
she  was  living  at  the  San  Remo  in  New  York;  and 
she  wrote  a  large  part  of  it  in  a  quiet  corner  in  Cen 
tral  Park.  To  Have  and  To  Hold,  appearing  two 
years  later  and  constituting  a  great  popular  success, 
was  begun  in  Birmingham  and  completed  mainly  at 
a  small  Virginia  mountain  resort.  The  first  draft  was 


140  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

written  with  a  lead  pencil  and  revised  with  exceeding 
thoroughness,  after  which  it  was  typewritten. 

Major  Johnston's  death  sent  his  daughter  to  Rich 
mond,  where  she  made  her  home  at  no  East  Franklin 
street  with  her  sisters,  Eloise  and  Elizabeth  Johnston, 
as  the  other  members  of  the  household.  Miss  John 
ston's  father  indubitably  did  a  great  deal  to  make  pos 
sible  The  Long  Roll  and  Cease  Firing,  her  epics  of  the 
Civil  War.  Leaving  aside  the  question  of  inherited 
traits  and  tastes  we  have  to  reflect  that  the  father  had 
served  in  the  Confederate  army  throughout  the  whole 
war,  gaining  promotion  to  major  in  the  artillery 
branch.  He  was  wounded  many  times.  He  had  not 
been  a  fire-eater  nor  an  extreme  partisan  and  it  was 
not  easy  to  get  him  to  talk  about  the  war.  When  he 
was  launched  on  the  subject  his  excellent  military 
knowledge  and  his  gift  for  vivid  description  enabled 
him  to  tell  a  wonderful  story.  He  comprehended 
strategy  and  tactics;  knew  the  personal  bravery  of 
the  leaders  on  both  sides;  had  seen  nearly  every  as 
pect  of  the  struggle.  His  daughter  profited. 

In  Richmond,  in  the  pleasant  three-story  "city" 
house  with  wistaria  over  the  white  porch  columns, 
with  microphylla  rose  vines,  crinkled  pink  crape- 
myrtle,  and  blossoming  magnolias,  Miss  Johnston 
worked  in  a  large,  airy  room  fronting  southeast  and  on 
the  second  floor.  It  was  full  of  antique  mahogany, 
books  and  pictures  and  not  infrequently  of  friends 
come  in  for  tea  and  grouped  about  a  tea  table.  These 
invasions  were  possible  in  the  afternoon.  In  the  morn 
ing  when  the  room  was  sunny  Miss  Johnston  was  busy 
writing  or  reading  proofs  or  dictating ;  she  had  begun 


MARY  JOHNSTON  I4i 

to  dictate  much  of  her  work  and  afterward,  at  Warm 
Springs,  Virginia,  where  she  went  to  work  upon  The 
Long  Roll  and  Cease  Firing,  the  rattle  of  typewriters 
came  to  the  ears  of  visitors  to  the  resort  like  a  faint 
crackling  of  musketry,  an  echo  of  that  conflict  which 
they  were  busied  to  portray. 

Miss  Johnston  began  early  to  travel.  She  has  spent 
winters  in  Egypt,  springs  in  Italy,  Southern  France; 
summers  in  England  and  Scotland;  Sicily,  Switzer 
land  and  Paris  are  part  of  her  experience.  These  jour 
neys  have  been  partly  a  matter  of  health.  It  must 
never  be  forgotten  in  estimating  Miss  Johnston's 
achievement  that,  as  with  Stevenson,  it  has  been  a  con 
tinual  struggle  with  illness  that  she  has  had  to  go 
through.  Her  will  has  driven  her  on.  Perhaps,  as 
where  electricity  encounters  high  resistance,  the  re 
sult  has  been  a  brighter,  more  incandescent  flame. 

With  Richmond  as  a  base  the  author  made  many 
excursions  to  Virginia  resorts,  but  chiefly  to  Warm 
Springs.  The  cottage  that  she  occupied  there  was  at 
one  time  occupied  by  General  Lee.  Lewis  Rand  was 
written  on  its  porch;  later  she  worked  there  on  her 
Civil  War  novels.  Eventually  she  built  herself  a  home 
called  Three  Hills  on  a  slope  half  a  mile  away  from 
Warm  Springs  and  above  the  hollow  in  which  the 
settlement  lies.  Off  to  the  south  from  Three  Hills 
curves  the  road  to  Hot  Springs.  Do  not  confuse 
Warm  Springs  and  Hot  Springs,  known  locally  as 
"The  Warm"  and  "The  Hot"  and  distinguishable  be 
cause  The  Warm  is  hotter  than  The  Hot !  Three  Hills 
is  a  witness  to  a  certain  recovery  of  health  for  its 


142  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

owner,  making  it  possible  for  Miss  Johnston  at  last 
to  have  a  permanent  home. 

There  are  forty-odd  acres,  mostly  left  as  nature 
has  disposed  them,  with  here  and  there  a  few  stone 
steps  to  help  you  up  a  slope.  The  house  is  large, 
roomy,  with  enclosed  porches  and  sleeping  porches, 
with  segments  and  adjuncts  which  make  it  a  large  L. 
Miss  Johnston's  study  gives  upon  a  formal  garden 
centered  about  a  sundial  and  bird  bath  of  carved  stone. 
Neat  brick  walks  go  between  hedge  plants  sent  by 
friends  in  Holland.  Flowers  execute  the  processional 
of  the  seasons. 

Steps  and  porches  of  red  brick  are  set  almost  level 
with  the  grass.  The  broad  hall  runs  back  to  the  gar 
den  and  gives  upon  the  study  and  the  sun  parlor. 
Eloise  Johnston  is  her  sister's  house  director.  There 
are  jam  closets,  linen  closets  and  a  cedar  room. 
Walled  off  from  the  garden  are  the  kitchen  and  serv 
ants'  dining-room.  The  servants,  in  the  style  of  the 
South,  live  in  their  own  cottages.  The  hospitality  of 
an  older  South  is  maintained  without  abatement. 

In  a  loose  cloak,  with  a  stout  stick,  Miss  Johnston 
tramps  the  Virginia  hills.  It  is  recreation,  perhaps, 
but  her  mind  is  always  at  work.  When  her  body  is 
at  work  also  she  sits  at  a  mahogany  desk  in  the  study, 
a  cluttered  desk,  with  an  apple  within  reach  of  her 
free  hand.  Panes  of  leaded  glass  about  the  room 
protect  books  of  every  description — history,  philoso 
phy,  science,  most  of  the  literature  of  suffrage  and 
feminism — a  battalion,  a  regiment  of  volumes.  In 
one  corner  two  large  globes,  one  terrestrial,  the  other 
astronomical;  elsewhere  a  microscope;  on  the  walls 


MARY  JOHNSTON  143 

and  mantel  shelf  copies  of  favorite  pictures  and  pho 
tographs  of  many  friends.  The  beautiful  old  chest 
that  used  to  house  a  grandmother's  linen  is  full  of 
old  magazines  and  newspapers,  ammunition  for  the 
author. 

Sooner  or  later  some  one  will  undertake  the  inter 
esting  task  of  going  through  Virginia  and  identify 
ing  the  sites  of  Miss  Johnston's  stories.  A  beginning 
was  made  by  Alice  M.  Tyler,  writing  in  the  Book 
News  Monthly  of  March,  1911. 

"Prisoners  of  Hope,  To  Have  and  to  Hold  and 
Audrey  are  full  of  allusions  to  people,  places  and 
events  that  must  cause  the  least  impressionable  nature 
to  thrill  with  patriotic  and  State  pride.  Visitors  to 
Jamestown  have  a  newborn  desire  to  pause  beside 
the  ruins  of  a  dwelling  house  where  a  young  daughter 
of  the  Jacquelines  greeted  her  guests  before  going 
abroad  to  keep  her  birthday  fete  upon  the  greensward 
in  Audrey's  day.  At  Williamsburg  is  pointed  out  a 
crumbling  edifice  that  in  its  day  represented  the  earli 
est  theater  in  the  United  States,  the  one  in  which 
Audrey  played  to  the  gentry  who  came  from  the  sur 
rounding  country  with  their  wives  and  daughters, 
eager  to  witness  the  antics  of  the  player  folk.  In  the 
same  Old  World  capital  is  Bruton  Church,  represent 
ing  the  scene  of  another  episode  in  Audrey's  life. 

"Higher  up  James  River  by  some  miles  is  West- 
over,  the  home  of  Audrey's  fair  rival,  Evelyn  Byrd, 
whose  pink  brocade  ball  gown,  a  treasured  heirloom, 
recalls  to  mind  the  governor's  palace  in  Williamsburg 
and  the  official  function  at  which  Audrey  beheld  the 
radiant  Evelyn  in  the  full  flush  of  her  loveliness. 


144  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

"Lewis  Rand  is  of  a  later  date.  In  its  pages  the 
country  of  the  upper  James  and  Richmond  come 
equally  into  play.  The  June  moon  still  streams  into 
the  ballroom  at  beautiful  Monticello,  the  home  of 
Thomas  Jefferson,  as  it  did  when  Rand,  the  untu 
tored,  practiced  his  steps  in  it,  and  was  admitted  to 
confidential  companionship  and  wardship  by  its  owner. 
The  grasses  still  wave  in  the  yard  of  old  Saint  John's 
Church,  Richmond,  where  Lewis  Rand's  wife  and  her 
sister  worshiped  and  saw  grouped  about  them  the 
quality  of  the  town  in  what  was  then  its  most  aristo 
cratic  quarter.  The  site  of  the  coffee-house  on  Main 
Street,  where  politicians  of  Rand's  party  assembled  to 
hear  the  news  and  discuss  the  issues  of  the  times,  can 
still  be  readily  identified.  But  the  tide  of  prosperity 
has  for  years  flowed  away  from  Leigh  Street  section, 
where  the  town  home  of  the  Rands  was  said  to  have 
been  situated,  in  the  midst  of  neighborly  souls  who 
sent  in  hot  dishes  for  supper  on  the  arrival  of  Mistress 
Rand  and  her  husband  from  their  country  residence 
near  the  State  University,  in  Charlottesville." 

There  is  something  to  be  done  also  in  the  way  of 
pedigrees.  Miss  Unity  Dandridge,  niece  of  Col. 
Churchill  in  Lewis  Rand,  was  the  mother  of  Fauquier 
Cary  in  The  Long  Roll.  The  Churchills,  the  Carys 
and  others  should  be  charted  for  us;  places,  estates, 
such  as  Fontenoy,  Three  Oaks,  Greenwood,  Silver  Hill, 
should  be  put  beyond  peradventure.  A  decent  Baede 
ker  of  Virginia  will  concern  itself  with  all  these  things. 

It  is  unnecessary  and  might  be  tedious  to  consider 
at  length  each  of  Miss  Johnston's  books.  Until  the 
publication  of  Hagar  in  1913  all  her  work  had  been. 


MARY  JOHNSTON  145 

historical  and  had  consisted,  with  the  exception  of  The 
Goddess  of  Reason,  of  novels  whose  scenes  lay  wholly 
or  mostly  in  Virginia.  Her  treatment  was  in  the 
main  chronological,  the  only  departure  from  this  being 
her  first  two  books.  Prisoners  of  Hope  (1898)  was 
a  story  of  colonial  Virginia  beginning  about  1663;  To 
Have  and  To  Hold  (1900)  is  a  romance  of  the  James 
town  settlement  starting  in  1621.  Then  came  Audrey 
(1902)  dealing  with  Virginia  in  the  time  of  Col.  Wil 
liam  Byrd  and  Lewis  Rand  (1908)  which  pictured  the 
Virginia  of  Jefferson.  The  Long  Roll  (1911)  and 
Cease  Firing  (1912)  gave  us  the  State  during  the  Civil 
War.  There  was  another  romance,  Sir  Mortimer,  be 
tween  Audrey  and  Lewis  Rand,  and  before  The  God 
dess  of  Reason,  which  was  perhaps  as  near  a  failure  as 
Miss  Johnston  could  come.  Very  likely,  as  suggested 
by  Meredith  Nicholson  in  an  article  in  the  Book  News 
Monthly  of  March,  1911,  Miss  Johnston's  preoccupa 
tion  with  the  poetic  drama  of  the  French  Revolution 
which  was  to  become  The  Goddess  of  Reason  was  to 
blame.  The  Goddess  of  Reason  gave  her  dramatic 
genius  full  play;  Julia  Marlowe's  acting  showed  it  to 
be  something  better  than  a  closet  drama.  In  its  breadth 
and  splendor  this  work  showed  Miss  Johnson  at  her 
full  power,  the  power  which  was  to  give  us  The  Long 
Roll  and  Cease  Firing  within  the  next  five  years. 

Although  in  The  Witch,  her  next  novel  after  Hagar, 
our  writer  went  back  to  Colonial  times  it  was  to  in 
terpret  the  present  in  the  light  of  the  past  and  to  show 
with  some  of  the  psychological  keenness  of  Lewis  Rand 
and  the  dramatic  action  of  her  earlier  books  a  pano 
rama  of  prejudice  and  persecution  "spiritually  over- 


146  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

come  by  gallant  faith  and  joy  of  living."  The  For 
tunes  of  Garin  (1915)  was  pure  romance  and  adven 
ture  set  in  Southern  France  of  the  time  of  the  Crusades 
and  colored  as  richly  as  a  tapestry.  Garin,  of  a  poor 
but  noble  family,  really  for  a  fight  or  a  frolic,  fights 
gloriously  in  the  Holy  Land  and  comes  back  to  France 
to  fight  as  gloriously  in  a  civil  war.  In  time  he  finds 
that  the  princess  in  whose  defense  and  behalf  he  has 
been  battling  is  the  girl  whom  he  rescued  from  peril 
years  before.  Of  The  Wanderers  (1917)  we  have 
already  spoken.  Foes  (1918)  is  a  story  of  boyhood 
friendship  transformed  into  lasting  hate.  The  set 
ting  is  Scotland,  before  and  after  the  Stuart  rebellion 
crushed  at  Culloden.  The  unusual  and  picturesque 
story  is  superbly  told  in  most  poetic  prose. 

How  Miss  Johnston  gets  her  effects  may  be  illus 
trated,  in  closing,  by  two  examples  from  The  Long 
Roll.  Illustrated,  we  say,  not  shown  in  the  sense  of 
enabling  any  one  else  to  get  them.  Unless  you  have 
her  dramatic  and  imaginative  genius  you  will  never 
be  able  to  take  raw  material  of  your  own  and  work 
a  similar  magic!  Here  is  Steve  Dagg,  the  coward: 

"Steve  again  saw  from  afar  the  approach  of  the 
nightmare.  It  stood  large  on  the  opposite  bank  of 
Abraham's  Creek,  and  he  must  go  to  meet  it.  He 
was  wedged  between  comrades — Sergeant  Coffin  was 
looking  straight  at  him  with  his  melancholy,  bad-tem 
pered  eyes — he  could  not  fall  out,  drop  behind !  The 
backs  of  his  hands  began  to  grow  cold  and  his  un 
washed  forehead  was  damp  beneath  matted,  red-brown 
elf  locks.  From  considerable  experience  he  knew  that 
presently  sick  stomach  would  set  in.  ...  Seized  with 


MARY  JOHNSTON  147 

panic  he  bit  a  cartridge  and  loaded.  The  air  was  rock 
ing;  moreover,  with  the  heavier  waves  came  a  sharp 
zzzz-ip  I  zzzzzz-ip !  Heaven  and  earth  blurred  together, 
blended  by  the  giant  brush  of  eddying  smoke.  Steve 
tasted  powder,  smelled  powder.  On  the  other  side  of 
the  fence,  from  a  battery  lower  down  the  slope  to  the 
guns  beyond  him  two  men  were  running — running  very 
swiftly,  with  bent  heads.  They  ran  like  people  in  a 
pelting  rain  and  between  them  they  carried  a  large  bag 
or  bundle,  slung  in  an  oilcloth.  They  were  tall  and 
hardy  men,  and  they  moved  with  a  curious  air  of  de 
termination.  'Carrying  powder !  Gawd!  before  I'd  be 
sech  a  fool '  A  shell  came,  and  burst — burst  be 
tween  the  two  men.  There  was  an  explosion,  ear- 
splitting,  heart-rending.  A  part  of  the  fence  was 
wrecked ;  a  small  cedar  tree  torn  into  kindling.  Steve 
put  down  his  musket,  laid  his  forehead  upon  the  rail 
before  him,  and  vomited." 

We  meet  Stonewall  Jackson  for  the  first  time  in  the 
novel's  pages: 

"First  Brigade  headquarters  was  a  tree — an  espe 
cially  big  tree — a  little  removed  from  the  others.  Be 
neath  it  stood  a  kitchen  chair  and  a  wooden  table, 
requisitioned  from  the  nearest  cabin  and  scrupulously 
paid  for.  At  one  side  was  an  extremely  small  tent, 
but  Brigadier-General  T.  J.  Jackson  rarely  occupied 
it.  He  sat  beneath  the  tree,  upon  the  kitchen  chair, 
his  feet,  in  enormous  cavalry  boots,  planted  precisely 
before  him,  his  hands  rigid  at  his  sides.  Here  he 
transacted  the  business  of  each  day,  and  here,  when 
it  was  over,  he  sat  facing  the  North.  An  awkward, 
inarticulate,  and  peculiar  man,  with  strange  notions 


148  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

about  his  health  and  other  matters,  there  was  about 
him  no  breath  of  grace,  romance,  or  pomp  of  war.  He 
was  ungenial,  ungainly,  with  large  hands  and  feet,  with 
poor  eyesight  and  a  stiff  address.  There  did  not 
lack  spruce  and  handsome  youths  in  his  command  who 
were  vexed  to  the  soul  by  the  idea  of  being  led  to 
battle  by  such  a  figure.  The  facts  that  he  had  fought 
very  bravely  in  Mexico,  and  that  he  had  for  the  enemy 
a  cold  and  formidable  hatred  were  for  him ;  most  other 
things  against  him.  He  drilled  his  troops  seven  hours 
a  day.  His  discipline  was  of  the  sternest,  his  censure 
a  thing  to  make  the  boldest  officer  blanch.  A  blunder, 
a  slight  negligence,  any  disobedience  of  orders — down 
came  reprimand,  suspension,  arrest,  with  an  iron  cer 
titude,  a  relentlessness  quite  like  Nature's.  Apparently 
he  was  without  imagination.  He  had  but  little  sense 
of  humor,  and  no  understanding  of  a  joke.  He  drank 
water  and  sucked  lemons  for  dyspepsia,  and  fancied 
that  the  use  of  pepper  had  caused  a  weakness  in  his 
left  leg.  He  rode  a  rawboned  nag  named  Little  Sor 
rel,  he  carried  his  saber  in  the  oddest  fashion,  and  said 
'oblike'  instead  of  'oblique.'  He  found  his  greatest 
pleasure  in  going  to  the  Presbyterian  Church  twice  on 
Sundays  and  to  prayer  meetings  through  the  week. 
Now  and  then  there  was  a  gleam  in  his  eye  that  prom 
ised  something,  but  the  battles  had  not  begun,  and  his 
soldiers  hardly  knew  what  it  promised.  One  or  two 
observers  claimed  that  he  was  ambitious,  but  these 
were  chiefly  laughed  at.  To  the  brigade  at  large  he 
seemed  prosaic,  tedious,  and  strict  enough,  performing 
all  duties  with  the  exactitude,  monotony,  and  expres 
sion  of  a  clock,  keeping  all  plans  with  the  secrecy  of 


MARY  JOHNSTON  149 

the  sepulcher,  rarely  sleeping,  rising  at  dawn,  and  re 
quiring  his  staff  to  do  likewise,  praying  at  all  seasons, 
and  demanding  an  implicity  of  obedience  which  might 
have  been  in  order  with  some  great  and  glorious  cap 
tain,  some  idolized  Napoleon,  but  which  seemed  hardly 
the  due  of  the  late  professor  of  natural  philosophy 
and  artillery  tactics  at  the  Virginia  Military  Insti 
tute.  True  it  was  that  at  Harper's  Ferry,  where,  as 
Colonel  T.  J.  Jackson,  he  had  commanded  until  John 
ston's  arrival,  he  had  begun  to  bring  order  out  of 
chaos  and  to  weave  from  a  high-spirited  rabble  of  Vol 
unteers  a  web  that  the  world  was  to  acknowledge  re 
markable  ;  true,  too,  that  on  the  second  of  July,  in  the 
small  affair  with  Patterson  at  Falling  Waters,  he 
had  seemed  to  the  critics  in  the  ranks  not  altogether 
unimposing.  He  emerged  from  Falling  Waters  Brig 
adier-General  T.  J.  Jackson,  and  his  men,  though  with 
some  mental  reservations,  began  to  call  him  'Old  Jack.' 
The  epithet  implied  approval,  but  approval  hugely  qual 
ified.  They  might  ha-ve  said — in  fact,  they  did  say — 
that  every  fool  knew  that  a  crazy  man  could  fight!" 

Now  it  is  perfectly  easy  to  take  to  pieces  these 
descriptions  and  the  other  passages  we  have  cited  from 
Mary  Johnston's  work.  With  a  little  study  you  may 
see  several  things  which  go  far  to  explain  the  effective 
ness  of  her  passages,  some  of  them  things  of  which 
she  was  not  directly  conscious  in  writing,  things  that 
her  experience  had  taught  her  and  that  she  attended  to 
automatically,  almost  without  thought. 

For  example: — 

Every  word  tells.  Turn  back  to  the  first  part  of  this 
chapter  and  notice  again  in  the  account  of  Stonewall 


150  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

Jackson's  funeral  how  the  focus  is  narrowed.  They 
bore  the  dead  man  past  the  immortal  great  and  into 
the  Capitol,  then  into  one  room  of  the  Capitol,  and 
rested  him  before  a  single  object  in  that  room.  Your 
eye,  which  has  been  ranging  widely,  is  directed  to  a 
single  point. 

Immediately,  in  the  next  short  paragraph,  the  oppo 
site  effect  is  struck  home.  Your  eye  is  lifted  from 
"the  calm  face,  the  flag-enshrouded  form,  lying  among 
lilies"  to  the  Speaker's  Chair,  symbol  of  a  people's 
freedom  and  self-rule,  to  the  room  in  which  the  chair 
stands,  the  Virginia  Hall  of  Delegates,  the  forum 
of  an  historic  and  noble  State,  and  then  to  the  build 
ing  of  which  this  room  is  a  part,  the  Capitol  of  the 
Confederacy,  a  league  of  States  banded  for  a  cause 
men  will  die  for.  The  eye  ranges  abroad  and  the  mind 
of  the  reader  grasps  the  greatness  of  that  cause  as 
he  knows  its  tragic  sorrow. 

Glance  again  at  the  ending  of  Lewis  Rand.  It  is 
quiet  but  in  the  unresolved  chord  sounded  by  the  boy 
Michael's  words  there  is  the  greatest  possible  spur  to 
the  reader's  imaginative  faculty.  "  'He  said  he  must 
have  sleep.' '  It  is  placed  squarely  upon  you  to  con 
struct  the  picture  of  the  murderer  who  could  not, 
night  or  day,  close  his  eyes  and  lose  himself  from  the 
secret  terror. 

Steven  Dagg  did  not  have  chills  up  and  down  his 
spine.  No  familiar  unpleasant  thrill  was  his  but  a 
dreadful  cessation  within,  so  that  the  backs  of  his  hands 
became  cold.  He  knew  he  would  be  sick.  And  when 
the  shell  burst  between  the  two  powder  carriers  he  was 
incapable  of  feeling  at  all ;  purely  reflex  physical  action 


MARY  JOHNSTON  151 

was  the  most  that  was  possible  for  him.  Fancy  his 
utter  numbness!  It  was  too  absolute  for  hysteria; 
he  may  be  said  for  the  instant  to  have  had  no  nerves, 
no  mind,  no  consciousness  that  could  be  recognized  as 
such. 

The  passage  in  which  Miss  Johnston  acquaints  us 
with  Stonewall  Jackson  has  its  secret  in  the  precise, 
scrupulous,  neat  cataloguing  of  the  man.  Every  word 
that  could  be  inflected  into  an  expression  of  per 
sonal  opinion  is  absent.  We  see  just  those  things 
about  Jackson  that  those  in  contact  with  him  noted; 
some  are  what  we  ordinarily  consider  essentials  of 
description,  some  are  beautifully  irrelevant  in  es 
timating  character.  But  we  are  not  now  after  Jack 
son's  character;  it  is  not  known!  A  gleam  in  his 
eye  was  observable,  but  one  "hardly  knew  what  it 
promised."  Of  course  not!  If  Miss  Johnston,  in 
the  light  of  the  present,  were  to  tell  us  she  would 
destroy  the  interest  we  feel  in  the  man.  After 
knowing  of  him  vaguely  only  as  a  fine  soldier 
we  are  making  his  acquaintance  as  a  queer  old 
codger  who  may  or  may  not  have  stuff  in  him.  Of 
course  the  fact  that  we  have  some  historical  knowledge 
of  him  handicaps  us;  we  can't  view  him  quite  as  un 
certainly  and  humanly  as  his  men.  But  Miss  Johnston 
brings  us  almost  to  their  viewpoint ;  almost  she  makes 
us  forget  that  we  know  what  is  coming  from  the  inar 
ticulate  figure  sitting  stiffly  under  the  big  tree,  sucking 
lemons  for  dyspepsia,  going  stiffly  to  church,  missing 
the  point  of  the  best  joke,  facing  the  North.  The  final 
touch  to  make  us  share  his  men's  incertitude  is  the 


152  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

strict  report  of  their  verdict  on  him — "every  fool  knew 
that  a  crazy  man  could  fight!" 

It  is  a  long  and  discursive  chapter,  as  we  warned 
you.  So  much  there  is  to  be  said  about  genius,  so 
many  ways  of  saying  the  same  thing !  Miss  Johnston's 
novels  had  sold  over  1,000,000  copies  before  the  pub 
lication  of  The  Long  Roll,  when  she  had  only  some  six 
books  to  her  credit  and  of  these  only  four  of  a  character 
to  make  a  wide  appeal.  Is  not  this  in  some  sort  a  re 
markable  vindication  of  popular  taste,  of  the  judgment 
of  the  readers  whose  preferences  create  the  "best  sell 
ers"  ?  We  think  it  is  and  hail  it.  And  her  the  millions 
hail. 

BOOKS  BY  MARY  JOHNSTON 

Prisoners  of  Hope,  1898. 

To  Have  and  to  Hold,  1900. 

Audrey,  1902. 

Sir  Mortimer,  1904. 

The  Goddess  of  Reason,  1907. 

Lewis  Rand,  1908. 

The  Long  Roll,  1911. 

Cease  Firing,  1912. 

Hagar,  1913. 

The  Witch,  1914. 

The  Fortunes  of  Garin,  1915. 

The  Wanderers,  1917. 

Foes,  1918. 

Published  by  Houghton  MiMin  Company,  Boston; 
except  that  Sir  Mortimer  and  Foes  are  published  by 
Harper  •&  Brothers,  New  York. 


CHAPTER  XII 

CORRA  HARRIS 

THEY  rise  before  dawn,  gentle  souls  who  find 
peace  in  the  labor  of  their  hands  and  in  their 
astonishing  faith.  They  are  the  silent  com 
panions  of  their  husbands.  People  do  not  talk  much 
in  the  valley  because  there  is  not  much  to  say.  They 
know  the  weather,  a  few  psalms,  a  few  golden  texts 
and  a  few  hymns  by  heart.  They  also  know  each  other 
the  same  way,  which  is  a  good  deal  more  than  hus 
bands  and  wives  can  always  claim  in  this  place. 

"I  do  not  know  a  single  lazy  woman  in  the  valley 
nor  one  who  is  unhappily  married.  They  worry  some 
over  the  bees  when  they  swarm  inopportunely  and 
over  the  chickens  when  they  take  the  roup,  and  over 
the  children  when  they  have  a  bad  cold  or  do  not  learn 
their  Sunday  school  lessons,  but  they  do  not  worry 
over  their  husbands.  They  are  not  angry  with  man 
kind.  As  near  as  I  can  make  out  they  want  better 
schools  and  they  long  for  a  closer  walk  with  God. 
But  I  never  knew  one  to  want  a  limousine  or  a  ser 
vant  to  do  her  work  or  a  nurse  for  her  baby. 

"And  you  could  not  put  one  of  these  fashionable 
split  corkscrew  skirts  upon  any  of  them.  Call  it  what 
you  please,  evil-mindedness  or  modesty,  but  they  are 
as  far  removed  from  the  fashionable  clothes  one  sees 

i53 


154  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

upon  women  in  New  York  as  these  women  would  ap 
pear  to  them  removed  from  decency  and  thrift. 

"I  do  not  know  how  long  such  a  state  of  sweetness 
and  homely  goodness  will  last  there.  The  feet  of  youth 
take  hold  upon  the  ways  of  the  world.  When  I  return 
this  spring  I  may  see  some  girl  at  the  singing  school 
on  Sunday  afternoon  wearing  a  tight  skirt.  But  I 
am  thankful  I  have  seen  what  I  have  of  the  simple, 
direct  living  of  these  men  and  women  in  the  valley, 
whose  only  problem  is  to  perform  the  day's  work  well, 
to  love  one  another  and  to  believe  in  God  and  His 
mercies." 

Thus  Corra  Harris  in  the  spring  of  1914  in  New 
York.  It  is  almost  superfluous  to  say  that.  No  other 
man  or  woman  of  the  writers  of  this  country  could 
have  uttered  the  words,  because  no  other  American 
writer  has  that  homely  vigor  and  Biblical  phraseology, 
nor  that  peculiar  directness  of  uttered  thought  which 
can  express  in  one  breath  the  longing  for  better  schools 
and  a  closer  walk  with  God,  which  can  contrast  the 
things  of  the  flesh  and  the  things  of  the  spirit  in  the 
same  sentence.  From  the  day  when  the  first  install 
ment  of  A  Circuit  Rider's  Wife  appeared  in  the  Sat 
urday  Evening  Post  it  was  manifest  that  America  had 
a  new  writer  of  distinction. 

The  distinction  is  not  so  much  "literary"  as  national. 
Corra  Harris's  work  could  be  nothing  but  American. 
It  is  racy  of  the  soil,  and  crusted  with  unusual  and 
deep  personal  experience  of  life.  The  experience  was 
externally  of  a  rare  sort  but  spiritually  of  a  wide  and 
common  and  very  profound  sort.  It  was  an  intensive 
cultivation  of  the  soul  that  she  shared  with  us  and 


CORRA  HARRIS  155 

we  who  had  had  a  taste  of  that  experience  were  able 
to  understand  and  rejoice  in  it.  For  the  depths  of 
life  are  spiritual  depths.  They  are  not  gained  by  travel 
be  it  ever  so  wide,  nor  by  exciting  worldly  adven 
tures.  They  are  plumbed  at  home,  by  the  fireside, 
at  the  supper  table,  in  bed  on  sleepless  nights,  in  the 
snatched  intervals  of  exhausting  and  ordinary  toil,  in 
the  room  where  a  father  lies  dying,  in  the  room  where 
two  young  people  are  confessing  love,  in  the  room 
where  a  child  is  being  born. 

Corra  Harris  was  born  on  a  typical  Southern  cot 
ton  plantation  owned  by  her  father,  Tinsley  Tucker 
White,  at  Farm  Hill,  Elbert  county,  Georgia.  Her 
mother  had  been  Mary  Elizabeth  Matthews.  The  girl 
spent  her  early  years  on  the  plantation  and  was  edu 
cated  at  home.  Occasionally  she  made  trips  to  town 
behind  two  white  mules.  When  she  was  14  she  was 
sent  to  a  local  seminary.  A  few  years  there  joined  to 
the  desultory  teaching  at  home  gave  her  what  was 
considered  in  the  South  of  the  late  '703  and  early 
'8os  (she  was  born  March  17,  1869)  a  very  respect 
able  education — for  a  girl. 

At  17  she  was  married  to  Lundy  Howard  Harris, 
a  young  minister.  It  was  his  first  few  years  on  a 
Methodist  circuit  which  gave  Mrs.  Harris  the  material 
from  which  she  was  able  later  to  construct  A  Circuit 
Rider's  Wife.  After  two  or  three  years  of  preaching 
Mr.  Harris  became  professor  of  Greek  in  Emory  Col 
lege,  Oxford,  Georgia.  Then  for  the  first  time  his 
wife  began  to  write,  using  the  pen  name  of  Sidney  Er- 
skine.  She  met  with  no  success  until  she  was  25.  Then 
Clark  Howell,  editor  of  the  Atlanta  Constitution,  pub- 


I5~6  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

lished  in  the  Sunny  South  (owned  by  the  Constitution) 
a  story  of  hers  called  Darwinkle's  Dream.  It  was  a 
gruesome  story  and  Mr.  Howell  made  Mrs.  Har 
ris  rewrite  some  of  it  to  "give  the  poor  fellow  [the 
hero]  a  better  chance."  Gruesome,  yes;  nevertheless 
Mrs.  Harris's  friend,  Joel  Chandler  Harris,  creator  of 
Uncle  Remus,  laughed  over  what  he  called  the  humor 
of  it! 

In  1899  Mrs.  Harris  had  a  series  of  articles  on  the 
South's  problems  accepted  by  the  Independent  maga 
zine.  Steady  progress,  thereafter;  she  became  a  con 
tributor  to  the  Saturday  Evening  Post  and  with  the 
publication  of  A  Circuit  Rider's  Wife  reached  her 
deserved  place.  Her  husband  died  on  September  18, 
1910.  They  had  been  married  since  1887. 

Mrs.  Harris's  home  is  in  the  "valley"  we  have  heard 
her  describe,  not  so  far  from  Atlanta  and  near  Pine 
Log,  in  Bartow  county,  Georgia.  It  is  a  long,  low 
log  cabin  with  a  forest  of  cathedral  palms  in  front 
of  it.  From  the  west  you  look  down  slopes  to  the 
crops  Mrs.  Harris  grows,  for  she  is  a  farmer.  The 
living  room  around  which  the  house  is  built  was  an 
Indian  cabin  over  a  hundred  years  old.  The  din 
ing  room  is  in  back  of  the  living  room  and  is  dec 
orated  in  yellow  browns.  Isma  Dooley,  writing  an 
article  which  appeared  in  a  number  of  Southern  news 
papers,  completes  the  picture : 

"The  marigolds  on  the  table  are  a  harmonious  touch 
and,  as  I  write,  the  whole  cabin  is  gold-lighted  by  the 
afterglow  of  the  wonderful  sunset.  Mrs.  Harris's  own 
room  and  sleeping  porch  are  on  the  first  floor.  The 
guest  rooms  are  up  a  granite  rustic  stairway — cozy 


CORRA  HARRIS  157 

apartments  done  all  in  blue.  A  rustic  passageway  leads 
to  the  kitchen  and  servants'  quarters,  all  of  log  con 
struction.  Mrs.  Harris's  little  study  is  another  adjunct 
of  the  cabin  and  is  in  the  shade  of  stately  pine  trees. 
There  are  no  neighbors  within  a  mile,  but  Mrs.  Har 
ris  has  a  large  acquaintance  in  the  county  and  is  de 
voted  to  the  people  and  their  interests.  She  told  me 
many  things  about  them  as  we  took  a  long  drive  this 
afternoon  behind  her  stout  mule  team  Ely  the  and  Cobb 
and  driven  by  Hicks,  a  colored  retainer.  [The  mules 
are  apparently  named  in  honor  of  fellow  contributors 
to  the  Saturday  Evening  PostJ] 

"  'Good  evening,  Mrs.  Pliney,'  said  Mrs.  Harris,  as 
she  greeted  an  old  woman  sitting  out  in  front  of  a 
typical  little  country  house. 

"The  woman  smiled  and  responded.  'When  I  passed 
here  the  other  day,'  said  Mrs.  Harris,  'and  com 
mented  on  the  cosmos  blossoms  in  her  yard,  she  re 
marked,  "Neighbor,  you  should  see  them  when  the 
wind  blows  the  blossoms;  they  look  like  butterflies." 

"  'The  next  morning  I  heard  she  had  shot  that  day 
at  one  of  her  neighbors!  It  shows  that  a  poetic  soul 
and  desperation  often  go  together.' 

"Here  Hicks  interrupted  in  apologetic  tones :  'But, 
Miss  Corra,  the  man  she  shot  at  was  all  the  time  a-teas- 
in'  her  dog.'  " 

At  the  time  of  Miss  Dooley's  visit  Mrs.  Harris 
had  been  for  some  weeks  endeavoring  to  buy  a  saddle 
horse.  The  author  had  looked  at  about  twenty-five 
animals  and  was  contemplating  the  purchase  of  a  young 
and  beautiful  creature  having  every  virtue  and  grace 
a  horse  can  have. 


158  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

"But,"  Mrs.  Harris  remarked,  "when  I  asked  the 
man  the  price  of  this  paragon  he  said  $100!" 

We  could  wish  there  were  space  in  this  book  for  the 
reproduction  of  some  of  the  letters  Mrs.  Harris  has 
received  since  she  began  writing.  They  are  touching 
and  amusing  and  altogether  extraordinary.  Her  book 
In  Search  of  a  Husband,  for  instance,  brought  her 
an  epistle  from  a  young  man  of  27  who  was  in  search 
of  a  wife.  Though  he  had  entered  the  Presbyterian 
ministry  at  15  and  had  worked  his  way  through  col 
lege  and  the  theological  seminary  he  was  "full  of  fun" 
and  liked  "good  shows,  music  and  baseball.  I  suppose 
the  worst  habit  I  have  is  smoking."  He  explained 
naively:  "I  have  visited  every  place  of  interest  in 
North  America.  .  .  .  With  all  my  experience,  all  my 
studies  and  all  my  theories  I  ask  myself  again  and 
again:  Do  I  know  what  love  is?" 

Mrs.  Harris  endeavors  to  make  some  answer  to  all 
such  letters  but  it  must  have  been  a  baffling  task  to 
frame  a  reply  to  a  reader  whose  letter  began : 

"Often  I  have  noticed  that  in  your  metaphers  you 
employ  terms  used  in  techical  grammer,  for  instance, 
in  your  Circuit  Rider's  Widow : — 'He  has  never  risen 
above  haveing  his  virtue  conjugated  in  the  subjunctive 
mood.'  I  naturally  inferred  that  what  he  did  or  said 
was  contrary  to  fact,  as  that  conveyed  the  substance 
of  the  definition  of  the  subjunctive  mood.  But,  you 
follow  up  with  may,  can,  must,  etc.,  signs  of  the 
Potential  mood." 

This  perplexed  and  perplexing  inquirer  went  on  to 
praise  Mrs.  Harris's  character  drawing. 

It  is  not  her  character  drawing,  penetrative  and  un- 


CORRA  HARRIS  159 

canny  as  that  is — a  man  once  growled :  "This  woman 
knows  too  much !" — that  most  distinguishes  Mrs.  Har 
ris  but  her  irony,  her  corrosive  sanity!  Take  her 
plain  talk  on  eugenics. 

"During  the  last  ten  years  that  I  have  been  coming 
to  New  York  I  have  heard  one  subject  discussed  more 
than  any  other,  more  than  art,  literature,  science, 
politics,  society,  religion,  industry  or  commerce.  This 
is  'sex/  and  the  people  whom  I  meet  are  not  deca 
dent.  They  all  harrow  it,  dissect  it  with  an  openness, 
a  Tristram  Shandy  frankness  that  would  imply  they 
have  no  personal  sense  of  gender,  male  or  female. 

"One  very  distinguished  man  who  is  interested  in 
the  problem  of  sex,  not  for,  but  I  should  say  out  of 
the  working  girls,  said  this  to  me : 

"  'We  want  to  give  these  girls  the  right  start  sexu 
ally.'  (It  is  what  nature  always  gives  them,  by  the 
way!)  'We  are  trying  to  inform  them  of  everything 
concerning  sex.  Of  everything — destroy  their  curios 
ity,  you  know.' 

"  'How  will  you  do  it  ?'  I  asked. 

"  'Why  with  lectures  upon  it,  with  plays  drama 
tizing  its  dangers,  and  these  moving  pictures  of  the 
white  slave  traffic.  These  are  some  of  the  means  we 
are  employing.' 

"  'I  suppose  you  never  thought  of  marriage,'  I  sug 
gested.  'That  is  nature's  method.' 

"  'Oh,  marriage,  but  you  see  they  can't  marry.  Men 
won't  have  them;  not  enough  men  anyhow.  Besides 
a  great  many  of  them  ought  not  to  marry  the  kind 
of  men  they  can  and  do  marry.  These  very  unions 
breed  most  of  our  criminals,' 


160  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

"There  you  have  a  sample  of  the  intelligence  of 
this  place.  It  is  so  wrong  from  beginning  to  end 
that  no  problem  of  living  in  it  can  be  solved  right. 
Everybody  must  therefore  beg  the  question.  These 
girls  are  not  fit  to  become  wives,  these  men  are  not 
fit  to  become  husbands,  so  they  are  to  be  saved  by  in 
forming  them  of  what  they  miss  in  marriage.  I  doubt 
if  it  saves  them. 

"However,  they  have  got  as  far  as  naming  the  prob 
lem  'eugenics.'  They  hold  conventions  around  about 
this  place  to  decide  how  a  thoroughbred  human  animal 
can  be  produced.  Laws  are  being  passed,  or  framed 
for  passing,  which  require  a  physician's  certificate 
of  health  from  the  contracting  parties  in  marriage.  It 
sounds  right.  It  would  be  right  if  such  laws  could 
be  enforced.  But  they  cannot  be.  You  might  as 
well  pass  a  law  that  smoke  shall  not  rise,  that  stones 
shall  not  fall.  When  two  people  love  one  another 
that  way  they  will  marry  whatever  their  physical  rat 
ing  may  be." 

When  A  Circuit  Rider's  Widow  was  published  it 
was  interpreted  in  some  quarters  as  an  attack  on  Meth 
odism  or  upon  the  Methodist  Church,  South;  there 
were  also  allegations  that  Mrs.  Harris  had  been  blas 
phemous  in  certain  passages.  The  charge  of  blas 
phemy  was  foolish  and  the  conclusion  respecting  Mrs. 
Harris's  attitude  toward  Methodism  must  be  modified 
upon  reading  her  very  direct  statement : 

"I  believe  in  the  Methodist  church,  its  doctrines,  the 
liberty  and  breadth  of  its  original  purpose.  I  believe 
in  Felix  Wade  [the  central  figure  in  A  Circuit  Rider's 
Widow]  as  the  preacher  to  come  who  will  deliver  this 


CORRA  HARRIS  161 

church  from  what  is  almost  a  military  system  of  gov 
ernment,  menacing  to  its  spiritual  power.  In  short,  I 
believe  in  the  democracy  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Such  spirituality  cannot  be  properly  interpreted  by 
an  autocracy  nor  by  a  commercialized  civilization 
which  we  are  very  rapidly  developing  in  this  coun 
try." 

The  reader  will  be  mindful,  reading  the  last  sen 
tence,  that  it  was  uttered  in  1916,  a  year  before  Amer 
ica's  entrance  into  the  war  against  Germany. 

Mrs.  Harris's  books  require  reading,  not  critical 
discussion.  And  having  read  them  the  criticism  en 
suing  will  not  be  literary  criticism  but  a  criticism  of 
life — which  literature  is  sometimes  held  to  be.  In  the 
valley  she  lives  with  her  daughter  Faith,  now  Mrs. 
Harry  Leech.  It  should  be  noted  that  the  acknowl 
edged  original  of  Susan  Walton  in  her  book,  The  Co- 
Citizens,  was  Mrs.  William  H.  Felton,  Georgia's  pio 
neer  suffragist,  a  woman  much  honored  for  her  pub 
lic  spirit  and  for  public  services  rendered  as  a  private 
person,  notably  the  production  at  the  right  moments  of 
a  scrapbook  in  which  were  pasted  all  sorts  of  bits  of 
information  about  officeholders  and  candidates.  Mrs. 
Felton  collected  these  items  for  years.  She  was  over 
80  when  Mrs.  Harris  wrote  her  into  The  Co-Citizens 
and  although  she  lived  in  Cartersville,  near  "the  val 
ley,"  the  two  women  did  not  meet  until  after  the  pub 
lication  of  the  novel. 

No  better  close  for  this  chapter  than  its  opening — 
Mrs.  Harris's  own  words!  She  is  picturing  her  life — 
and  quite  as  vividly  herself — to  Isma  Dooley.  It  is 
after  her  visit  to  the  European  battlefronts.  She  re- 


1 62  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

vives  not  what  she  saw  of  horror  and  struggle  there, 
but  what  she  has  known  of  pettiness  and  greatness  in 
her  peaceful  home: 

"I  was  so  worried  over  the  feuds  between  the  breth 
ren  and  the  choir  and  my  own  fault-finding  spirit  that 
I  used  to  go  round  behind  the  church  sometimes  and 
sit  down  among  the  graves  to  comfort  myself. 

"We  have  buried  our  people  there  for  sixty  years. 
Men  who  never  could  get  on  with  each  other  in  the 
church  are  lying  side  by  side,  like  brothers  in  the  same 
bed.  I  say  it  encourages  me  to  know  that  the  time 
will  come  when  we,  too,  will  finish  our  day's  work 
and  the  strife  with  which  we  test  each  other's  spirits, 
and  lie  down  out  there  like  the  lion  and  the  lamb, 
together.  But  we  shall  be  dead,  which,  in  my  opin 
ion,  is  the  only  safe  way  for  lions  and  lambs  to  lie 
down  together. 

"I'd  sit  there  and  watch  the  fallen  autumn  leaves 
come  whirling  and  tipping  over  the  tombs  like  little 
brown  spirits  of  the  dust,  blown  in  the  wind.  I  thought 
of  what  a  good  man  old  Amos  Tell  was,  though  no 
body  could  get  on  with  him  in  the  church.  But  his 
contrariness  didn't  count  now  in  my  thoughts.  I  only 
remembered  how  he  bore  the  burdens  of  the  church; 
how  cross,  but  generous  he  was  with  the  poor;  how 
he  made  the  coffin  for  Molly  Brown's  husband  and 
didn't  charge  for  it.  Then  I'd  bend  down  and  pull  a 
few  weeds  from  among  the  violets  that  grew  round 
his  monument,  as  I'd  have  dusted  his  coat  for  him 
after  a  long  journey.  And  I  would  walk  over  and 
look  at  John  Elrod's  fine  tomb — John,  who  didn't 
know  whether  he  was  willing  to  be  a  fool  for  Christ's 


CORRA  HARRIS  163 

sake  and  who  surpassed  the  wise  in  the  simplicity  of 
his  faith. 

"I'd  look  down  at  Abbie  Carmichael's  grave  as  I 
passed — such  a  dingy  little  grave,  with  such  a  meek 
little  monument  over  it.  We  used  to  think  she  was  a 
great  trial  in  the  missionary  society,  always  wanting 
to  turn  it  into  a  spiritual  meeting  instead  of  attending 
to  the  business  and  collecting  dues.  She  was  hungry 
for  the  bread  of  life  from  morning  till  night.  Now 
she  was  satisfied,  with  her  dust  lying  so  close  to  the 
roots  of  the  great  trees.  People  look  better  when  you 
remember  them  after  they  are  gone,  and  you  do  not 
need  to  contend  with  just  their  mortal  frailties;  and 
you  wonder  why  you  ever  put  so  much  stress  on  them 
anyhow. 

"I  always  feel  as  if  I  can  bear  with  the  living  more 
patiently  after  I've  spent  an  hour  in  this  churchyard 
and  seen  how  far  removed  the  dead  are  from  their 
transgressions." 

BOOKS  BY  CORRA  HARRIS 

A  Circuit  Rider's  Wife,  1910. 
Eve's  Second  Husband,  1911. 
The  Recording  Angel,  1912. 
In  Search  of  a  Husband,  1913. 
The  Co-Citizens,  1915. 
A   Circuit  Rider's  Widow,  1916. 
Making  Her  His  Wife,  1918. 
From  Sunup  to  Sundown,  1919.  (With  Faith  Har 
ris  Leech,  her  daughter.} 

The  first  two  books  are  published  by  Henry  Alte- 
mus,  Philadelphia;  the  rest  by  Doubleday,  Page  & 
Company,  New  York. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
MARY  AUSTIN 

[Spellings  and  punctuation,  even  though  inadvertent, 
have  been  faithfully  transcribed  for  the  sake  of  pre 
serving  something  intensely  human  in  the  personal 
sketch  below.] 

[Typewritten]  Independence,  Cal. 

Nov.  25th,  1902. 
Messrs.  Houghton,  Mifflin  and  Co. ; 

Gentlemen, 

Enclosed  you  will  find  the  biographical  sketch  of 
my  life  and  some  account  of  my  work,  in  reply  to 
your  request  for  the  same.  I  have  no  doubt  that  you 
can  get  some  expression  of  opinion  from  Mr.  Muir 
in  regard  to  my  book  "A  Land  of  Little  Rain",  but  I 
will  take  pains  to  make  sure  of  the  matter  and  write 
you  again  in  regard  to  it.  Chas.  F.  Lummis,  editor 
of  Out  West,  and  George  Hamlin  Fitch,  literary  editor 
of  The  San  Fransisco  Chronicle,  and  also  the  reviewer 
of  the  Argonaut  can  be  counted  on  to  give  me  some 
friendly  notice,  especially  Lummis  as  he  is  my  first 
and  warmest  friend  in  the  west.  ...  I  have  written 
the  biographical  sketch  in  the  third  person  to  avoid 
the  use  of  so  many  *Ts,"  which  always  makes  me 

164 


MARY  AUSTIN  165 

miserable,  you  can  cut  out  all  that  is  not  to  the  point. 

Sincerely  yours 

MARY  AUSTIN. 
[Written] 

P.  S.  I  am  afraid  you  will  be  disappointed  with 
the  notes  but  it  is  the  best  I  can  do. 

[Enclosure.     Typewritten] 

Mary  Hunter  Austin  was  born  in  Carlinville,  Illi 
nois,  descended  on  her  mother's  side  from  the  family 
of  the  celebrated  French  chemist,  Daguerre.  Being 
born  fortunately  before  the  flood  of  so-called  children's 
books,  she  began  to  be  familiar  with  the  English 
classics  as  soon  as  she  could  read,  and  the  study  of 
these  and  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  nature  occu 
pied  most  of  the  years  until  the  end  of  her  university 
work.  At  that  time  very  serious  ill  health  drove  her 
to  California,  and  a  friendly  destiny  provided  that 
she  should  settle  in  the  new  and  untamed  lands  about 
the  Sierra  Nevadas  and  the  desert  edges.  Although  not 
yet  twenty,  she  had  already  made  some  preparation 
for  following  the  profession  of  teaching,  and  in  the 
unconventional  life  of  mining  towns,  and  in  the  wick 
iups  of  the  Indians  found  exceptional  opportunities 
for  pushing  her  investigations  in  child-study. 

Mrs.  Austin's  work  in  this  direction  met  with  in 
stant  recognition  in  her  state,  and  before  long  many 
excellent  positions  were  open  to  her,  but  by  this  time 
she  discovered  that  she  did  not  want  them.  Like  most 
desert  dwellers,  Mrs.  Austin  had  come  under  the  spell 
of  its  mystery,  and  after  teaching  a  short  time  in  the 
Los  Angeles  Normal  School,  was  glad  to  return  to  the 


i66  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

life  of  the  hills,  and  soon  after  began  to  devote  herself 
seriously  to  writing. 

Very  early  her  work  attracted  the  attention  of  The 
Atlantic  Monthly,  St.  Nicholas,  and  the  Youth's  Com 
panion.  Most  of  the  monthly  magazines  have  pub 
lished  work  of  hers. 

All  of  Mary  Austin's  work  is  like  her  life,  out 
of  doors,  nights  under  the  pines,  long  days'  watchings 
by  water  holes  to  see  the  wild  things  drink,  breaking 
trail  up  new  slopes,  heat,  cloud  bursts,  snow,  wild 
beast  and  mountain  bloom,  all  equally  delightful  be 
cause  understood. 

[At  this  point  the  typewriting  stops ;  the  "biograph 
ical  notes"  continue  in  pen  and  ink,  Mrs.  Austin  writ 
ing  on  both  sides  of  the  sheets  of  paper.] 

N.  B.  I  can't  do  it,  when  I  wrote  the  letter  that 
accompanies  this  I  thought  it  would  be  easy  to  do,  but 
it  isn't.  There  is  really  nothing  to  tell.  I  have  just 
looked,  nothing  more,  when  I  was  too  sick  to  do  any 
thing  else  I  could  lie  out  under  the  sage  brush  and 
look,  and  when  I  was  able  to  get  about  I  went  to 
look  at  other  things,  and  by  and  by  I  got  to  know  when 
and  where  looking  was  most  worth  while.  Then  I  got 
so  full  of  looking  that  I  had  to  write  to  get  rid  of 
some  of  it  to  make  room  for  more.  I  was  only  two 
months  writing  "A  Land  of  Little  Rain"  but  I  spent 
12  years  peeking  and  prying  before  I  began  it.  After 
a  while  I  will  write  a  book  about  my  brother  the  coyote 
which  will  make  you  "sit  up,"  I  mean  that  is  the  way 
I  feel  about  it. 


MARY  AUSTIN  167 

I  have  considered  a  long  while,  to  see  if  I  have  any 
interesting  excentricities  such  as  make  people  want  to 
buy  the  books  of  the  people  who  have  them,  but  I 
think  not.  You  are  to  figure  to  yourself  a  small, 
plain,  brown  woman  with  too  much  hair,  always  a 
little  sick,  and  always  busy  about  the  fields  and  the 
mesas  in  a  manner,  so  they  say  in  the  village,  as  if 
I  should  like  to  see  anybody  try  to  stop  me. 

Years  ago  I  was  a  good  shot,  but  as  I  grew  more 
acquainted  with  the  ways  of  wild  folks  I  found  it 
lie  heavy  on  my  conscience  and  so  latterly  have  given 
it  up.  I  have  a  house  by  the  rill  of  Pine  creek,  looking 
toward  Kearsarge,  and  the  sage  brush  grows  up  to 
the  door.  As  for  the  villagers  they  have  accepted  me 
on  the  same  basis  as  the  weather,  an  institution  which 
there  is  no  use  trying  to  account  for.  Two  years 
ago  I  delivered  the  Fourth  of  July  oration  here,  and 
if,  when  there  is  no  minister  of  any  sort  here,  as  fre 
quently  happens,  I  go  and  ring  the  church  bell,  they 
will  come  in  to  hear  me  in  the  most  natural  manner. 

When  I  go  out  of  this  valley  (Owens)  to  attend  or 
to  talk  to  large  educational  gatherings  I  ride  130  miles 
in  the  stage  across  the  desert  to  Mojave,  and  the  driver 
lets  me  hold  the  lines.  Once  when  he  said  the  water 
of  Mojave  made  him  sick,  I  put  him  inside  and  took 
the  stage  in  from  Red  Rock  to  Coyote  Holes.  The 
other  passengers  who  were  a  barber  with  a  wooden  leg, 
and  a  Londoner,  head  of  a  mining  syndicate,  took 
care  of  my  baby.  You  see  I  was  the  only  one  who 
knew  how  to  drive  four  horses. 

For  a  long  time  before  I  came  to  Independence,  I 
lived  in  Lone  Pine  where  the  population  is  two-thirds 


1 68  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

Mexican  and  there  gained  the  knowledge  of  their 
character  which  informs  many  of  my  stories.  I  should 
say  that  my  husband  who  is  Register  of  the  U.  S. 
Land  office,  is  also  a  botanist  and  much  of  my  out 
door  life  is  by  way  of  assisting  his  field  work. 

Now  for  my  work — the  best  is  "A  Land  of  Little 
Rain,"  and  the  child  verse  in  the  St.  Nicholas.  I 
think  the  best  and  worst  of  it  is  that  I  am  a  little 
too  near  to  my  material.  Where  I  seem  to  skimp  a 
little,  I  can  understand  now  that  the  book  is  cold,  it 
was  only  that  I  presupposed  a  greater  knowledge  in  the 
reader.  During  the  last  six  months  I  have  discovered 
that  the  same  thing  is  happening  to  me  that  I  com 
plained  of  in  Jimville. — the  desert  has  "struck  in."  But 
I  shall  do  better  work,  and  still  better.  I  am  pleased 
to  learn  through  some  of  my  editor  friends  that  my 
verse  is  rather  better  paid  for  and  more  widely  copied 
than  the  average  product  of  verse  makers,  and  I  con 
ceive  it  possible  that  this  might  be  traced  to  the  in 
fluence  of  Piute  and  Shoshone  medicine  men  and 
Dancers  who  are  the  only  poets  I  personally  know. 
For  consider  how  I  get  nearer  to  the  root  of  the  poetic 
impulse  among  these  single-hearted  savages  than  any 
other  where.  But  if  I  write  at  length  upon  this  point 
you  will  say  with  my  friend  Kern  River  Jim,  "This 
all  blame  foolishness."  And  this  brings  me  to  my 
work  among  the  Indians  in  which  I  am  somewhat  gen 
erally  misrepresented.  If  I  deny  what  is  commonly 
reported,  that  the  Indians  regard  me  worship  fully  for 
the  good  I  do,  then  is  the  denial  taken  for  modesty 
which  it  is  not,  but  merely  truth.  They  tell  me  things 
because  I  am  really  interested  and  a  little  for  the  sake 


MARY  AUSTIN  169 

of  small  favors  but  mostly  because  I  give  them  no 
rest  until  they  do.  Says  my  friend  Kern  River  Jim, 
"What  for  you  learn  them  Injun  songs?  You  can't 
sing  um,  You  go  learn  songs  in  a  book,  that's  good 
enough  for  you."  Nevertheless  I  have  been  able  to 
do  them  nearly  as  much  good  as  they  have  done  me. 

This  is  the  best  I  can  do  for  you  in  this  way, — but 
whatever  you  are  minded  to  say  of  my  work  say  this 
— that  I  have  been  writing  only  four  or  five  years  and 
have  not  yet  come  to  my  full  power,  nor  will  yet  for 
some  years  more. 

So  wrote  Mary  Austin  in  late  fall,  1902.  Very 
nearly  a  year  later  Houghton  Mifflin  Company  pub 
lished  The  Land  of  Little  Rain,  a  collection  of  four 
teen  sketches  that  were  read  with  admiration  and  joy, 
that  are  re-discovered  every  year,  that  established  in- 
contestably  Mary  Austin's  qualifications  as  a  writer. 

"East  away  from  the  Sierras,  south  from  Pana- 
mint  and  Amargosa,  east  and  south  many  an  uncounted 
mile,  is  the  Country  of  Lost  Borders. 

"Ute,  Paiute,  Mojave,  and  Shoshone  inhabit  its 
frontiers,  and  as  far  into  the  heart  of  it  as  a  man 
dare  go.  Not  the  law,  but  the  land  sets  the  limit. 
Desert  is  the  name  it  wears  upon  the  maps,  but  the 
Indian's  is  the  better  word.  Desert  is  a  loose  term 
to  indicate  land  that  supports  no  man;  whether  the 
land  can  be  bitted  and  broken  to  that  purpose  is  not 
proven." 

The  reader  draws  in  his  breath  sharply.  This  is  a 
writer!  And  she  has  style.  Yes,  but  so  have  dozens 
of  others.  And  they  never  do  anything  with  it.  They 


170  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

write  charming  little  essays,  fanciful,  forgotten.  What 
else  has  she? 

She  has  keen  eyes,  a  keen  mind,  a  heart  to  under 
stand  and  a  silence  and  time  to  come  to  the  under 
standing.  This  much  you  make  sure  of  as  you  go 
deeper  into  the  book,  reading  the  accounts  of  The 
Pocket  Hunter  and  Jimville:  A  Bret  Harte  Town. 
When  you  have  finished  you  know  Mrs.  Austin's 
promise  but  unless  you  have  read  her  later  books  you 
do  not  know  her  performance. 

It  began  right  after  the  appearance  of  The  Land  of 
Little  Rain  with  her  next  work,  the  novel  Isidro,  a 
romance  dealing  with  the  California  of  the  padres, 
and  it  reached  its  high  and  sustained  level  with  A 
Woman  of  Genius. 

She  did  not  remain  on  the  edge  of  the  desert.  To 
do  so  would  have  been  fatal.  She  moved  about  and 
with  benefit  to  herself  and  her  work.  Now  she  lives 
in  a  house  facing  on  Gramercy  Park,  New  York,  where 
she  has  a  studio.  She  has  exchanged  the  Mojave 
desert  for  the  desert  of  Manhattan,  but  she  is  shel 
tered  in  an  oasis  touched  with  the  lingering  loveli 
ness  of  the  New  York  H.  C.  Bunner  knew.  Ask 
her  about  the  advantages  of  her  new  environment  and 
she  will  tell  you  a  story: 

"A  young  Calif ornian  who  came  East  to  try  his 
fortune  gravitated  naturally  to  Washington  Square 
where  Genius  is  supposed  to  germinate.  He  was  per 
sonally  conducted  to  the  Liberal  Club  where  a  young 
woman  in  bobbed  hair  and  a  futurist  dress  asked  him 
if  he  didn't  think  the  Liberal  Club  the  most  remark 
able  thing  in  America. 


MARY  AUSTIN  171 

"'Well/  said  the  Westerner,  'there's  the  Grand 
Canyon,  you  know.' 

"There  you  have  it,"  concludes  Mrs.  Austin.  "If 
you  haven't  seen  the  Grand  Canyon  you  had  better 
keep  away  from  the  Liberal  Club;  but  once  you  have 
caught  the  lift  and  bigness  of  America  outside  New 
York,  then  New  York  is  the  most  inspiring  place  in 
the  world  in  which  to  work." 

Ask  her  about  her  fine  novel  The  Ford,  a  story  of 
present  day  California  which  takes  its  title  from  a 
river  shallow  where  the  boy  Kenneth  Brent  rescues 
a  lamb  from  drowning : 

"The  book  records  incidents  in  my  own  life  in  the 
struggle  for  the  waters  of  Owens  River  which  the 
city  of  Los  Angeles  stole  from  us,"  Mrs.  Austin  ex 
plains.  "That  was  a  very  wicked  episode,  and  I  did 
not  begin  to  do  justice  to  the  chicanery  of  Los  An 
geles.  I  am  saving  some  of  these  things  for  the  sequel 
to  The  Fordl  It  was  I  who  discovered  and  made 
public  the  attempt  of  the  city  to  secure  the  surplus 
rights  of  the  river  in  just  such  fashion  as  I  have 
described  Anne  and  Kenneth  Brent  doing  in  the 
book." 

We  have  had  Mary  Austin's  portrait  of  herself  in 
1902;  let  us  have  a  portrait  of  her  by  a  visitor  who 
met  her  about  that  time.  Elia  W.  Peattie,  writing  in 
the  Boston  Transcript,  supplies  just  those  externals 
that  we  need  to  round  out  our  picture : 

"I  met  another  desert  woman,  too  [she  had  been 
describing  r.  visit  to  Ida  Meacham  Strobridge] — Mary 
Austin,  who  has  within  the  last  eighteen  months  ap 
peared  twice  in  the  Atlantic  in  sketches  which  could 


172  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

have  been  written  only  by  one  who  knows  the  soli 
tude  and  understands  it.  A  Shepherd  of  the  Sierras 
and  The  Little  Coyote  were  the  titles  of  these  stories. 
She  has  also  written  much  verse  and  of  a  peculiar 
order.  It  is  for  children,  and  has  a  wild  and  curious 
quality.  This  has  appeared  chiefly  in  the  Youth's 
Companion  and  St.  Nicholas. 

"Mary  Austin  lives  down  in  Independence,  where 
her  husband  is  Government  land  agent.  She  is  fairly 
on  the  edge  of  Death  Valley,  and  her  companions 
are  principally  Piute  Indians.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Austin  has  an 
Indian-like  solemnity  about  her.  She  has  a  pervading 
shyness  and  likes  the  philosophy  of  the  Indians  and 
their  poetry.  Instinctively  she  is  artistic  in  all  she 
does,  and  her  writing  has  undeniable  style  as  well  as 
remarkable  individuality.  Her  paper  on  The  Indian 
Arts  read  at  one  of  the  art  sessions  of  the  biennial 
meeting  of  the  General  Federation  of  Women's  Clubs 
was  the  most  purely  literary  paper  of  the  entire  con 
vention.  It  was  written  too  well,  if  anything.  It  was 
so  smooth  that  it  failed  to  arrest  the  attention  of  the 
more  casual  listeners.  .  .  . 

"All  that  Mrs.  Austin  says  has  a  certain  value. 
She  speaks  seldom.  Her  utterance  is  rather  slow, 
her  voice  very  soft,  and  her  remarks  are  usually  grave. 
.  .  .  The  desert  has  cloistered  her;  she  is  a  religieuse, 
serving  her  kind,  wearing  no  habit,  subscribing  to  no 
creed." 

A  bit  of  a  purple  patch,  that  last!  The  truth  is  that 
the  desert  molded  Mary  Austin  without  stunting  her. 
She  is  like  one  of  those  desert  plants  of  which  she 
tells  us,  whose  maturity  may  be  attained  at  ten  feet  or 


MARY  AUSTIN  173 

four  inches,  according  to  moisture  and  the  region  in 
which  they  grow.  Herself,  she  is  a  desert  species — 
but  transplanted  in  time!  She  made  her  final  escape 
before  the  desert  "struck  in"  too  deeply;  had  she  not 
done  so  dwarfing  would  have  been  inescapable ;  instead 
of  the  ten-foot  maturity  she  would  have  given  us  her 
best — her  all,  her  completion — at  four  inches. 

She  has  been  lucky,  yes,  but  not  beyond  her  deserv 
ing.  The  Atlantic  which  printed  her  first  offerings 
was,  you  will  remember,  the  same  Atlantic  which  gave 
Jack  London  his  first  chance.  The  Boston  magazine 
seldom  prints  serials,  how  seldom  may  be  gathered 
from  the  fact  that  five  years  elapsed  after  the  appear 
ance  of  Mary  S.  Watts's  Van  Cleve  before  the  "con 
tinued"  line  footed  one  of  its  pages.  Yet  the  Atlantic 
serialized  Isidro.  The  North  American  Review,  no 
less  severely  selective  than  the  Atlantic, — the  North 
American,  which  had  printed  serially  novels  by  Henry 
James  and  Joseph  Conrad,  elected  to  print  Mary  Aus 
tin's  The  Man  Jesus  month  by  month.  The  Man  Jesus 
is  a  biography  such  as  none  but  an  American  steeped 
in  the  wilderness,  steeped  in  fine  literature,  with  a 
deeply  developed  reflective  habit  could  have  written.  It 
might  almost  have  been  predicted  from  a  woman  who 
remarked  in  1904,  who  threw  out  in  the  course  of  a 
casual  lecture  the  arresting  words:  "Most  of  the 
great  religions  have  originated  in  desert  countries." 

If  we  say  that  The  Man  Jesus  called  for  unusual 
knowledge  and  an  unusual  faculty,  what  shall  we  say 
of  A  Woman  of  Genius?  Some  readers  were  doubt 
less  shocked  by  this  novel  on  its  first  appearance;  the 
number  must  be  smaller  to-day.  It  is  as  honest  as 


174  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

George  Meredith  and  as  finely  wrought  as  anything 
by  Henry  James.  Genius,  in  the  experience  of  Olivia 
Lattimore,  a  superb  actress  of  tragic  roles,  is  a  gift, 
a  possession  in  the  sense  in  which  we  say  that  a  man 
or  a  woman  "is  possessed  of" — or  by — a  devil.  Liv 
ing  in  Chicago  on  85  cents  a  week  was  not  only  not 
in  any  way  important  to  her  artistic  development,  it 
was  actually  "a  foolish  and  unnecessary  interference 
with  my  business  of  serving  you  anew  with  entertain 
ment."  In  other  words,  the  people  who  think  that  pov 
erty  and  heartbreak  are  inevitable  in  the  case  of  a 
person  of  genius,  are  even  desirable  or  requisite  for 
the  growth  and  flowering  of  that  genius,  are  a  pack  of 
silly  souls.  Worse  than  that,  they  are  guilty  souls; 
for  their  attitude  allows  misery  and  wretchedness  to 
befall  the  gifted  mortal  to  such  an  extent  that  the 
wonder  is  the  world  has  any  geniuses  at  all,  or  any 
who  survive  to  reveal  what  is  in  them. 

And  so  Mrs.  Austin  makes  her  Olivia  Lattimore 
bare  her  life  for  us  pretty  completely.  It  is  an  austere 
and  serious  revelation. 

"About  a  week  before  my  wedding  we  were  sitting 
together  at  the  close  of  the  afternoon ;  my  mother  had 
taken  up  her  knitting,  as  her  habit  was  when  the 
light  failed.  .  .  .  On  the  impulse  I  spoke. 

"  'Mother,'  I  said,  'I  want  to  know  .  .  .  ?' 

"It  seemed  a  natural  sort  of  knowledge  to  which 
any  woman  had  a  right.  Almost  before  the  question 
was  out  I  saw  the  expression  of  offended  shock  come 
over  my  mother's  reminiscent  softness.  .  .  . 

"  'Olivia !  Olivia !'  She  stood  up,  her  knitting  rigid 
in  her  hands,  the  ball  of  it  speeding  away  in  the  dusk 


MARY  AUSTIN  175 

of  the  floor  on  some  private  terror  of  its  own.  'Olivia, 
I'll  not  hear  of  such  things !  You  are  not  to  speak  of 
them,  do  you  understand!  I'll  have  nothing  to  do 
with  them!' 

"  'I  wanted  to  know/  I  said.  'I  thought  you  could 
tell  me.  .  .  ." 

But  the  question  "had  glanced  in  striking  the  dying 
nerve  of  long  since  encountered  dreads  and  pains.  We 
faced  them  together  there  in  the  cold  twilight. 

"  Tm  sorry,  daughter' — she  hesitated — 'I  can't  help 
you.  I  don't  know  ...  I  never  knew  myself.'  " 

We  follow  the  girl  through  marriage,  the  birth  of 
a  son  and  his  death  in  infancy,  the  almost  accidental 
disclosure  of  her  gift  for  the  stage,  her  struggle  with 
her  husband,  the  gradual  breach  between  them  and  his 
defection  involving  the  village  dressmaker,  the  long 
and  harrowing  period  in  Chicago  after  his  death  when 
Olivia  was  without  work,  without  money  and  often 
without  hope.  Success  came,  of  course;  it  takes  death 
itself  to  extinguish  genius  such  as  she  possessed,  "of 
which  I  was  for  the  moment  the  vase,  the  cup."  The 
finest  thing  in  this  remarkable  story  is  the  portrayal 
of  that  last  struggle  between  Olivia  and  Helmeth  Gar- 
rett  in  which  the  woman's  gift  (or  possession)  bests 
even  love.  But  the  chapters  on  Olivia's  childhood  are 
wonderfully  penetrating  glimpses  into  the  mind  of  a 
young  girl  and  the  depiction  of  other  characters  is  of 
a  high  order;  one  of  the  best  being  the  sketch  of 
Olivia's  brother,  Forester,  "Forrie,"  who  made  a  voca 
tion,  a  life  work,  of  the  business  of  being  a  dutiful  son. 
A  Woman  of  Genius  is  the  work  of  a  woman  of 
genius. 


1 76  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

"Whatever  you  are  minded  to  say  of  my  work  say 
this — that  I  ...  have  not  yet  come  to  my  full  power." 
You  knew,  Mrs.  Austin.  And  now  we  all  know. 

BOOKS  BY  MARY  AUSTIN 

Love  and  the  Soul-Maker,  Houghton  Mifflin  Com 
pany,  Boston. 

The  Green  Bough.  Doubleday,  Page  &  Company, 
New  York. 

The  Land  of  the  Sun,  Houghton  Mifflin. 

The  Land  of  Little  Rain,  1903.     Houghton  Mifflin. 

The  Basket  Woman,  1904.     Houghton  Mifflin. 

Isidro,  1905.     Houghton  Mifflin. 

The  Flock,  1906.     Houghton  Mifflin. 

Santa  Lucia,  1908.    Harper  &  Brothers,  New  York. 

Lost  Borders,  1909.     Houghton  Mifflin. 

The  Arrow  Maker,  1911.     Doubleday,  Page. 

Christ  in  Italy,  1911.     Doubleday,  Page. 

A  Woman  of  Genius,  1912.     Doubleday,  Page. 

The  Lovely  Lady,  1913.     Doubleday,  Page. 

The  Man  Jesus,  1915.     Houghton  Mifflin. 

The  Ford,  1917.     Houghton  Mifflin. 

The  Young  Woman  Citizen,  1918.  The  Womans 
Press,  New  York. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

MARY  S.  WATTS 

"2722  Cleinview  Avenue,  East  Walnut  Hills, 

"Cincinnati,  Ohio,  June  19,  1918. 
"My  dear  Mr.  Overton: 

I  HAVE  here  a  letter  from  Mr.  Latham  of  Mac- 
millans  with  a  very  complimentary  request  from 
you  for  data  regarding  myself.  There  really  is 
not  much  to  say  about  me  as  a  person.  The  trade  of 
writing  has  been  pursued — in  times  past,  at  least — by 
so  many  picturesque  people  in  so  picturesque  a  fashion 
that  the  rest  of  the  world  has  got  into  the  habit  of 
thinking  an  author  must  of  necessity  be  picturesque; 
but  such  is  not  my  case,  rather  to  my  regret  whenever 
anybody  displays  this  kind  and  gratifying  curiosity 
about  me.  One  would  dearly  love  to  be  a  slap-dash, 
swashbuckling  sort  of  person  like  Borrow,  say;  or  a 
sick,  fiery,  indomitable  R.  L.  S.  Then  there  would  be 
something  to  write  about.  As  it  is,  I  am  only  an  in 
conspicuous  gentlewoman — I  hope  a  gentlewoman  any 
way! — with  a  more  or  less  Victorian  style  of  writing 
which  has  frequently  proved  a  profound  puzzle  to 
critics  of  a  younger  generation. 

"The  dates  are  to  be  got  out  of  Who's  Who,  but 
to  spare  trouble  I  will  give  them  here.  Born,  1868; 
brought  up  on  an  old  farm  in  central  Ohio;  went  to 

177 


178  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

school  at  the  Convent  of  the  Sacred  Heart  in  Cincin 
nati  for  some  two  or  three  years;  married  1891 ;  lived 
in  Cincinnati  ever  since.  Of  all  these  events,  the  being 
brought  up  on  that  old  farm  is  probably  the  greatest 
asset  for  the  literary  career.  The  other  things  happen 
to  everybody,  but  the  farm  experience  was  sui  generis, 
not  exactly  like  anything  else,  least  of  all  like  the 
farm-life  you  read  about  and  involuntarily  picture. 
My  people  moved  to  this  country  home  about  the  mid 
dle  of  the  last  century,  when  it  was  only  a  few  years 
removed  from  the  wilderness;  I  think  the  farm  was 
the  remnant  of  a  comfortable  patrimony  which  in  the 
well-tried  old  phrase  had  been  'run  through';  I  think 
it  was  a  last  resort,  refuge,  stronghold;  but  these 
were  things  which  were  not  talked  about  in  the  family. 
I  can  see  now  that  the  life  I  was  made  to  live  as  a 
child  was  very  strange.  Here  we  all  were,  educated 
people  with  traditions  and  sophisticated  ideas,  set  down 
amongst  actual  backwoodsmen,  whom  the  older  mem 
bers  of  the  family  looked  upon,  without  the  least  idea 
of  being  snobbish,  as  peasants.  They  really  were  a 
wild,  uncouth  lot;  there  were  grown  men  and  women 
who  could  not  read  and  write.  Of  course  that  is  all 
over  now;  education,  the  railroads,  the  Ladies'  Home 
Journal  have  changed  everything.  Don't  think  I  am 
not  serious  in  mentioning  that  final  item :  I  sincerely 
believe  that  the  so-called  women's  magazines  have  done 
more  for  these  backward  and  isolated  communities  than 
all  the  other  preachers  and  teachers  put  together.  But 
the  point  of  telling  all  this  intimate  history  is  to  make 
you  understand  the  loneliness  of  my  upbringing  as  a 
child;  my  sister  and  I  had  no  companions  of  our  own 


MARY  S.  WATTS  179 

age ;  we  were  not  allowed  to  associate  with  the  country 
children.  We  must  have  been  queer  little  fish.  We 
had  to  make  up  our  own  games,  and  we  played  stories 
out  of  books,  taking  all  the  characters  in  turn. 

"The  Ohio  countryside  is  not  romantic  as  to  land 
scape;  nevertheless,  it  has  a  kind  of  comfortable  charm; 
I  have  described  it  pretty  accurately  in  Nathan  Burke. 
In  my  day  there  were  still  passenger-pigeons  by  the 
uncounted  thousands,  and  of  course  quail,  gray  squir 
rels,  and  other  kinds  of  game  in  like  abundance.  There 
was  an  old  man — at  least  I  thought  him  old  then — 
named  Ben  Rhodes,  who  used  to  make  his  living 
shooting  and  trapping,  and  who  was,  in  fact,  the  last 
of  the  pioneers.  He  wore  a  coon-skin  cap  with  the 
bushy  tail  hanging  down  his  back ;  and  butternut-dyed 
clothes.  He  could  shoot  a  squirrel  through  the  eye 
with  a  rifle — a  rifle,  mind  you ! — at  the  utmost  distance 
the  weapon  would  carry.  'Yeh  waste  a  power  o' 
powder  'n'  shot  with  them  thar  shot-guns/  he  would 
say.  'Yeh  taken  twenty  shot  when  one  orter  do.' 
I  remember  him  sitting  on  our  back-porch,  chewing 
tobacco,  and  skinning  squirrels,  the  last  an  operation 
of  hideous  dexterity.  You  rip  the  animal  down  the 
front,  and  then  after  certain  swift  and  mysterious  per 
formances  with  Ben's  hunting-knife  which  was  always 
horribly  bright  and  keen,  fit  to  scalp  people  with,  you 
take  hold  of  the  ears,  you  set  your  foot  on  the  tail, 
and  with  one  infallible,  quick  jerk  you  somehow  or 
other  turn  it  inside  out  and  there  in  a  trice  is  the  furry 
pelt  intact,  and  there  the  dreadful  skinless  corpse  of 
the  squirrel  with  all  its  muscles  showing,  red  and 
slick  and  shining !  I  never  see  a  squirrel  without  think- 


i8o  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

ing  of  Ben,  who  was  a  foot-loose  creature  and  wan 
dered  off  at  last,  and  died  somewhere,  much  like  the 
wild  things  he  hunted.  If  I  have  been  particular  to 
describe  him  here,  it  is  because  thirty  years  afterwards 
I  wrote  about  him  and  called  him  Jake  Darnell;  and 
in  all  the  writings  I  have  done  for  which  I  have  time 
and  again  been  accused  of  having  taken  living  models, 
he  is  absolutely  the  only  actual  portrait.  I  could  not 
have  imagined  Ben;  one  must  be  born  and  brought 
up  in  the  backwoods  of  Ohio  to  know  what  manner  of 
man  he  was.  This  answers,  out  of  its  order,  to  be  sure, 
one  of  your  questions,  that  is :  to  what  extent  are  my 
novels  autobiographical  or  reminiscent  of  real  persons? 
Except  as  regards  Ben,  they  are  not  at  all  reminiscent 
of  any  one  real  person,  and  nothing  I  have  ever  writ 
ten  has  reflected  my  own  life,  consciously  at  least. 
An  author,  I  think,  in  picturing  his  own  world,  as  seen 
through  his  own  eyes,  may  easily  tell  more  about  him 
self  than  he  knows. 

"This  also,  I  perceive,  answers  another  question: 
what  is  my  method  of  accumulating  material  ?  I  find 
I  have  none.  The  material  seems  to  present  itself  or 
to  be  gathered  up  and  packed  away  without  conscious 
effort  in  some  store-house  of  memory.  I  can  almost 
always  go  to  this  garret,  turn  over  the  junk,  and  haul 
out  what  I  want.  It  generally  needs  some  making 
over,  piecing  and  patching,  to  be  sure,  but  there  is  al 
ways  something  there  that  will  serve.  I  have  never 
had  to  make  a  memorandum,  as  I  understand  many 
authors  do,  of  likely  phrases,  telling  words,  and  so 
on,  never  sketched  out  a  scene  or  plot,  never  got  up 
in  the  middle  of  the  night,  or  hopped  off  an  omnibus 


MARY  S.  WATTS  181 

to  rush  after  a  scrap  of  paper  and  pencil  in  order  to 
'jot  down'  some  immortal  thought.  The  only  thing  I 
do  sometimes  'jot  down'  is  the  chronology  of  the 
narrative;  John  McGinnis  and  Mary  Dill  are  married 
at  such-and-such  a  date;  then,  will  their  son,  Dill  Mc 
Ginnis,  be  fifteen  at  such-and-such  a  date?  I  never 
know,  and  have  to  count  up  on  my  fingers,  and  gen 
erally  revise  the  schedule  afterwards;  and  I  have  been 
caught  up  pretty  sharply  by  the  unprofessional  critics 
who  volunteer  criticism  in  letters  to  authors,  for  being 
as  much  as  twenty  years  out  in  my  figures,  or  for  mak 
ing  contradictory  statements.  The  sole  excuse  I  have 
to  offer  is  that  I  can't  count,  and  never  got  any  far 
ther  than  six  times  eight,  which  I  believe  makes  forty- 
eight,  in  the  multiplication-table.  Invincible  ignorance, 
in  other  words,  must  be  my  salvation ! 

"As  to  my  'first  writings,'  I  shared  one  quality  with 
R.  L.  S.  at  any  rate;  I  knew  they  were  trash.  They 
were  mostly  short  stories  which  went  and  came  be 
tween  me  and  the  magazine-editors  with  a  pendulum- 
like  regularity;  I  used  to  work  furiously  over  these 
things,  and  always  sent  them  off  with  the  highest 
hopes,  and  yet  received  them  back  with  no  deep  disap 
pointment.  At  the  bottom  of  my  heart,  I  say,  I  knew 
they  were  trash.  What  I  did  not  know  was  that,  in 
very  truth,  I  should  never  write  anything  but  trash, 
no  matter  how  widely  it  got  printed  and  published; 
I  was  forever  expecting  some  day  to  'do  it'  and  sit 
down  satisfied;  I  am  still  expecting  that  miracle  and 
all  the  while  I  know  it  will  not  happen.  Some  of 
those  far-traveled  short  stories  have  since  been  re 
written  and  published,  and  some  incorporated  in  nov- 


182  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

els,  and  some  are  still  in  the  back  of  my  mind  wait 
ing  their  hour  of  usefulness.  When  I  began,  the  in 
fluence  of  Stevenson  was  still  very  strong,  and  Mr. 
Weyman  and  Mr.  Hope-Hawkins,  to  say  nothing  of 
Rider  Haggard  and  the  incomparable  Sherlock 
Holmes,  were  in  the  middle  of  their  popularity. 
Where  are  the  roses  of  yester-year?  We  will  always 
read  Stevenson,  but  we  realize  now  that  he  was  a 
writer — just  that.  And  he  was  a  great  personality — 
just  that.  Everybody,  including  myself,  used  strenu 
ously  to  imitate  him,  and  I  think  it  didn't  do  us  any 
harm;  he  preached  better  than  he  practiced,  and  after 
some  toiling  after  him,  we  found  that  out,  but  our 
toil  was  not  thrown  away.  I  will  say,  in  self-glori 
fication,  that  after  I  got  through  imitating  Steven 
son,  I  did  not  start  in  and  imitate  O.  Henry,  or  Mr. 
Rudyard  Kipling;  and  few  are  the  writers  who  can 
honestly  make  that  boast !  About  that  time,  it  became 
manifest  to  me  that  the  thing  to  do  was  not  to  muddle 
around  with  romance,  ancient  or  modern,  but  to  write 
about  people,  and  to  'lie  like  the  truth.'  I  remember 
reading  Thackeray,  and  being  struck  with  the  profit 
able  use  of  the  conversational  style  in  'lying  like  the 
truth';  I  don't  mean  'chatty'  and  I  don't  mean  col 
loquial,  and  I  don't  mean  that  easy  slinging  about  of 
words  which  the  new  writers  affect;  I  mean  conversa 
tional,  as  conversation  is  carried  on  between  persons 
in  what  I  shall  call  for  want  of  a  better  term  good 
society.  But  what  puzzled  me  about  Thackeray  was 
that  there  were  occasional  passages,  of  considerable 
extent,  wherein  he  was  not  conversational  at  all;  he 
was  writing  like  somebody  else,  but  it  still  had  the  most 


MARY'  S.  WATTS  183 

amazing  verisimilitude;  it  was  so  plausible  that  you 
believed  it  just  as  you  believe  the  morning  paper.  It 
was  in  Barry  Lyndon  that  this  first  struck  me,  I  be 
lieve.  Who  showed  him  that  trick?  He  is  forever 
talking  about  Fielding,  but  upon  re-reading  the  latter 
I  saw  it  was  not  Fielding  he  was  imitating.  Thack 
eray,  in  breezy  parlance,  can  give  Fielding  cards  and 
spades.  After  a  while,  in  a  moment  of  illumination, 
I  found  him  out.  The  wily  old  genius  was  not  bother 
ing  his  head  about  Fielding ;  the  man  he  was  modeling 
upon  was  Daniel  Defoe ;  that's  where  he  got  that  sim 
plicity  which  did  not  hesitate  at  times  to  be  prosy, 
well  aware  that  a  plain  true  narrative  has  always  the 
defect  of  its  quality,  monotony,  repetition,  a  tedious 
dwelling  on  detail.  There  is  nothing  in  fiction  better 
imagined  or  imagined  with  more  veracity  than  the  piti 
ful  importance  which  his  efforts  at  braiding  baskets, 
and  making  pottery  vessels,  assume  to  the  castaway 
Robinson  in  his  solitude,  and  yet  it  is  not  vividly  inter 
esting  reading.  There  is  nothing — also — better 
imagined  than  George  Warrington's  escape  from  Fort 
Duquesne,  with  the  help  of  the  Indian  squaw;  but  it 
is  rather  tiresome,  on  the  whole;  and  the  final  touch 
where  the  poor  squaw,  instead  of  turning  out  a  lovely, 
romantic  Pocahontas,  becomes  a  perfect  nuisance  when 
they  reach  the  settlements,  getting  drunk  and  creating 
scandal — that  is  a  masterpiece  of  realism;  and  we  all 
hate  to  know  about  it!  Re-reading  Defoe,  and  reading 
Thackeray  more  carefully,  with  side  excursions,  as  it 
were,  into  reading  Swift  and  Mr.  Thomas  Hardy,  it 
seemed  to  me  that  I  might  eventually  learn  the  trick. 
I  take  it  that  I  have  actually  succeeded  once  or  twice 


184  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

by  the  fact  that  nobody  will  believe  that  I  have  ever 
invented  a  single  person  or  incident !  People  are  eter 
nally  wanting  to  know  who  was  the  original  of  this 
or  that  character,  or  what  is  worse,  identifying  char 
acters  with  somebodies  whom,  ten  to  one,  I  have  never 
laid  eyes  on !  Others  have  insisted  that  they  knew  very 
well  I  was  cutting  the  tale  out  of  whole  cloth,  but  that 
I  had  no  'vision,'  was  'too  photographic,'  etc.  It  may 
well  be  so;  my  cup  is  very  small,  and  I  must  drink 
out  of  it,  willy-nilly.  The  critics,  as  I  have  said,  were 
rather  put  to  it  for  something  to  say,  when  I  appeared ; 
most  of  them  adopted  a  cautious,  middle-of-the-road 
policy;  you  see  I  might  turn  out  to  be  a  writer  after 
all,  with  my  bewildering  deliberation,  my  'careless 
fluency' — I  have  seen  this  phrase  used  in  description  of 
my  writing — my  emphasis  of  the  commonplace.  Of 
late  years,  I  think  they  have  got  used  to  me ;  for  that 
matter,  when  all's  said  and  done,  my  contributions  to 
literature  are  not  of  such  importance  as  to  arrest  a 
critic  long. 

"I  see  one  of  the  questions  relates  to  travels.  Mine 
have  been  about  as  those  of  the  average  citizen,  except 
that  one  or  two  were  undertaken  in  search  of  ma 
terial.  For  example,  I  went  to  Mexico  when  writing 
Nathan  Burke,  as  the  hero  is  supposed  to  take  part  in 
the  Mexican  War.  And  while  at  work  on  Van  Cleve, 
a  story  in  which  the  Spanish-American  War  makes  a 
kind  of  fugitive  entrance  and  exit,  I  went  to  Cuba, 
and  down  to  Santiago.  I  might  possibly  have  'faked 
up'  these  stories  without  the  trouble  of  the  journey; 
it  would  be  as  easy  to  do  that  as  to  imagine  society 
and  the  world  fifty  or  a  hundred  years  ago,  which  I 


MARY  S.  WATTS  185 

have  also  done — that  is  to  say,  not  easy  at  all;  nothing 
is  easy — but  I  could  have  done  it.  However,  I  prefer 
to  make  some  attempt  at  getting  the  atmosphere. 

"The  dates  of  publication  are  about  as  follows: 
The  Tenants  (McClure),  1908;  Nathan  Burke  (Mac- 
millan),  1910;  The  Legacy,  1911;  Van  Cleve:  His 
Friends  and  His  Family,  published  serially  in  the  At 
lantic  Monthly,  1912,  in  book  form  by  Macmillan, 
1913 ;  The  Rise  of  Jennie  Cushing,  1915 ;  The  Rudder, 
1916;  The  Boardman  Family,  1918;  also  a  book  called 
Three  Short  Plays,  1917. 

"I  cannot  let  this  go  without  adding  a  word  of  pro 
test — whether  in  your  judgment  it  is  fit  to  make  public 
or  not — about  the  people  who  in  printed  criticism,  or 
in  private  letters  and  conversations,  insist  on  attribut 
ing  to  me  the  words  I  put  into  the  mouths  of  my 
characters,  and  the  thoughts  I  put  into  their  heads.  I 
make  a  man  designedly  weak  and  futile,  or  idle,  or  dull, 
or  small-minded;  I  make  him  say  or  do  something 
which  precisely  exhibits  his  weakness,  or  futility,  or 
idleness,  or  dullness,  or  meanness;  how  else  shall  the 
reader  know  this  man  than  by  his  own  mouth,  by  his 
own  deeds?  Is  it  not  so  that  we  know  one  another? 
A  character  in  a  book  must  act  and  speak  in  his  part ; 
he  ought  never  to  become  even  for  one  instant  the 
mouthpiece  of  the  author;  he  is,  in  a  sense,  as  much 
a  stranger  to  the  author,  as  much  a  different  and  dis 
tinct  personality,  as  he  is  to  the  reader.  Then  why, 
when  I  make  a  man  say :  'There  is  no  God,'  and  more 
over,  go  to  work  and  express  this  opinion  in  a  dozen 
ways,  by  every  act  and  thought  of  his  career,  why 


186  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

do  people  accuse  me  of  being  an  atheist?  At  that 
rate,  if  I  invented  a  burglar,  I'd  first  have  to  be  a 
burglar  myself !  Nobody  ever  gives  me  credit  for  the 
kind,  intelligent,  temperate,  decent  people  I  create ;  it's 
only  the  disagreeable  ones,  apparently,  that  I  am  ac 
countable  for.  What  have  I  got  to  do  with  it?  I 
merely  imagine  a  character  such  as  we  meet  with  every 
day  of  our  lives,  put  him  into  a  certain  environment, 
or  submit  him  to  certain  circumstances,  and  then  see 
what  happens.  'By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them,' 
and  'Out  of  the  fullness  of  the  heart  the  mouth  speak- 
eth'  give  me  the  best  of  authorities  for  this  method; 
whole  pages  of  description  cannot  illuminate  the  reader 
as  much  as  one  unguarded  sentence  from  the  lips  of  a 
character.  But  why  accuse  me  of  his  sentiments? 
I'm  only  turning  a  searchlight  on  him.  The  thing  is 
exasperating,  not  less  so  because  it  is  a  sort  of  left- 
handed  tribute  to  the  verisimilitude  I  am  always  striv 
ing  after.  In  the  preface  to  one  of  his  books  the 
late  Mr.  William  de  Morgan  speaks  his  mind  earnestly 
about  the  same  kind  of  injustice;  and  I  am  further 
reminded  of  a  story  about  Thackeray,  who,  on  being 
reproached  for  'making  So-and-So  and  Such-a-One 
act  that  way,'  retorted :  'Why,  Good  Lord,  /  didn't  do 
it  They  did  it  themselves!'  So,  if  I  err,  at  least  I 
err  in  good  company. 

"This  letter  is  already  too  long.  With  very  many 
thanks,  and  best  wishes  for  the  forthcoming  book, 
I  am 

"Sincerely  yours, 

"MARY  S.  WATTS." 


MARY  S.  WATTS  187 

Mrs.  Watts's  candor  should  be  attended  by  an  equal 
candor  on  the  part  of  the  compiler  of  this  book.  Of 
course,  despite  the  reporter's  role  to  which  he  en 
deavors  pretty  scrupulously  to  stick  throughout  these 
pages,  he  has  his  personal  preferences ;  his  readers  have 
a  right  to  know  something  about  them  if  only  that 
they  may  discount  his  statements  at  their  own  intel 
lectual  rates  of  exchange.  What  we  have  to  say  about 
Mrs.  Watts  may  properly  be  prefaced,  then,  with  the 
admission  that,  on  the  whole,  we  (a  strictly  editorial 
we)  have  received  more  permanent  pleasure  and  sat 
isfaction  from  her  novels  than  from  those  of  any 
other  American  woman.  Let  us  try  to  make  clear  the 
grounds  for  this  satisfaction  and  let  us  also  try  to 
place  before  the  reader  the  solid  merits  of  her  work. 

Thackeray  and  Defoe,  as  she  makes  clear,  have  been 
most  important  of  all  writers  to  her ;  and  she  admired 
in  Thackeray  the  conversational  style  with  which  he 
told  his  story;  in  Defoe  she  found  the  key  to  that 
non-conversational,  simple,  rather  prosy,  repetitive, 
completely  realistic  method  of  relation  which  is  the 
best  treatment  in  certain  passages  and  which  affords 
the  reader — and  the  writer — necessary  relief.  But 
neither  Thackeray  nor  Defoe,  nor  Swift,  Hardy  or 
any  other  had  been  able  to  help  Mrs.  Watts  had  she 
not  possessed  certain  gifts  evidenced  in  every  one  of 
her  stories. 

She  can  see  a  character  through"  and  through.  By 
that  we  mean  she  can  not  only  conceive  a  person,  but 
she  can  tell  what  he  would  do  in  any  set  of  circum 
stances  soever.  Just  how  wonderful  this  is  you  have 
only  to  stop  a  moment  and  reflect  to  understand.  Take 


i88  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

any  person  whom  you  know  particularly  well — do 
you  know  what  he  would  do  if  he  suddenly  lost  all 
his  money,  or  his  job;  if  he  suddenly  became  rich; 
if  his  wife  left  him;  if  his  father  were  murdered;  if 
this;  if  that?  You  hesitate  and  well  you  may;  and 
yet  you  think  you  know  him  rather  well!  The  truth 
is,  you  know  only  certain  aspects  of  him;  you  have 
never  read  his  mind  or  heart  and  established  the  ex 
istence  or  absence  of  certain  traits  of  character  which 
will  infallibly  determine  his  action  in  any  event  that 
may  befall.  You've  never  done  that — why  should  you  ? 
But  you  must  do  just  that  if  you  are  going  to  write  a 
novel,  and  not  with  one  person,  but  with  half  a  dozen; 
moreover,  your  person,  when  it  comes  to  writing,  isn't 
somebody  you  can  study  in  flesh  and  blood,  at  least, 
not  in  Mrs.  Watts's  case,  for  Jake  Darnell  is  her  only 
actual  portrait. 

Mrs.  Watts  has  in  a  high  degree  what  has  been 
called  the  "fine  malice"  of  feminine  perception,  a  qual 
ity  which  makes  Pride  and  Prejudice  immortal  whether 
we  like  it  or  not;  this  is  not  malice  in  the  sense  of 
hating  or  grudging  or  even  disliking  the  people  about 
you.  It  is  merely  a  faculty  for  noticing  insignificant 
details  which,  when  assembled,  constitute  a  merciless 
betrayal — the  betrayal  is  merciless  whether  it  is  fa 
vorable  to  the  subject  or  not.  Where  Joseph  Conrad, 
for  example,  makes  you  envisage  a  man  as  a  single 
dominant  trait,  Mrs.  Watts  makes  you  see  him  as  a 
bundle  of  contradictions.  The  difference  in  method 
is  extreme,  but  both  methods  are  indispensable.  Con 
rad  supplies  the  key  to  an  otherwise  unreadable  soul; 
Mrs.  Watts  takes  the  soul  that  you  read  too  readily 


MARY  S.  WATTS  189 

as  that  of  a  person  upon  a  single  thing  intent  and 
breaks  it  up  for  you,  splits  it  into  a  dozen  shades  of 
meaning  and  purpose  as  the  prism  refracts  white  light 
into  a  whole  spectrum  of  colors. 

She  has  further  the  largeness  of  mind  and  tolerant 
humor  to  study  all  and  understand  all  and  set  every 
thing  down  with  unfailing  gusto.  Nothing  is  too 
mean  or  too  shabby,  too  pretentious  or  too  lofty  for 
her  eyes  and  her  pen.  She  delineates  insufferable 
young  men  like  George  Ducey  in  Nathan  Burke  and 
Everett  Boardman  in  The  Boardman  Family  whom 
Gene  Stratton-Porter  would  not  touch  with  a  pitch 
fork  and  whom  Edith  Wharton  could  never  render 
adequately.  But  Lord!  these  young  men  must  be  of 
some  use  in  the  world,  we  can  fancy  Mrs.  Watts  say 
ing  with  a  smile,  else  it's  not  likely  they'd  be  here! 
The  fact  that  they  are  here  and  have  to  be  reckoned 
with  is  enough.  Let  us  see  what  is  to  be  made  of 
them.  And  she  proceeds  to  show  us  what  is  made  of 
them — not  a  pretty  spectacle,  to  be  sure,  not  pointing 
a  clear  moral,  maybe,  but  worth  our  while  if  only  to 
remind  us  of  what  we  don't  know.  We  suspect  that 
Mrs.  Watts  would  subscribe  without  reservation  to 
Conrad's  notion  that  trying  to  find  the  moral  of  our 
existences  is  in  the  main  futile.  Do  you  recall  his 
words  in  A  Personal  Record  ? 

"The  ethical  view  of  the  universe  involves  us  at  last 
in  so  many  cruel  and  absurd  contradictions,  where  the 
last  vestiges  of  faith,  hope,  charity,  and  even  of  reason 
itself,  seem  ready  to  perish,  that  I  have  come  to  sus 
pect  that  the  aim  of  creation  cannot  be  ethical  at  all. 
I  would  fondly  believe  that  its  object  is  purely  spec- 


190  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

tacular:  a  spectacle  for  awe,  love,  adoration,  or  hate, 
if  you  like,  but  in  this  view — and  in  this  view  alone — 
never  for  despair!  Those  visions,  delicious  or  poign 
ant,  are  a  moral  end  in  themselves.  The  rest  is  our 
affair — the  laughter,  the  tears,  the  tenderness,  the  in 
dignation,  the  high  tranquillity  of  a  steeled  heart,  the 
detached  curiosity  of  a  subtle  mind — that's  our  affair !" 

It  is,  O  master!  Mrs.  Watts  has  always  made  it 
very  much  her  affair,  from  Nathan  Burke  to  the  pres 
ent  hour.  In  her  is  laughter,  as  when,  in  The  Rudder, 
Marshall  Cook,  the  author,  inspects  the  plant  of  Amzi 
Loring,  the  "ice  king."  Mr.  Loring  is  a  self-made 
man.  Cook  watches  the  machinery  spill  blocks  of  ice 
weighing  300  pounds  each. 

"'Beautifully  clear!  I  was  just  thinking  it  was 
like  a  great  glass  box,'  said  Cook.  'It  had  no  look  of 
being  solid.' 

"  'Um-huh.  Well,  I  have  seen  things  put  inside  it,' 
said  the  other,  sly  anticipation  suddenly  appearing  on 
his  features.  He  nodded  significantly  to  the  puller; 
and  presently  with  another  clang,  another  wail  of 
escaping  air,  there  boomed  down  upon  the  runway  and 
fled  past  them  another  three  hundred  pounds  with  a 
dark  object  embedded  in  the  middle  of  it,  at  sight 
of  which  Cook  gave  an  exclamation. 

"  'What !'  he  shouted,  rushing  to  peer  after  it. 

"  'I  told  'em  to  save  out  that  cake  and  send  it  up  to 
the  house  for  you,'  said  Amzi  One,  smiling,  well- 
pleased.  'You'll  see  it  again  when  you  get  home.' ' 

A  copy  of  Mr.  Cook's  latest  book  had  been  frozen 
in  the  ice  cake. 

"  'Mr.  Loring/  said  Cook  solemnly.     He  paused, 


MARY  S.  WATTS  191 

swallowing  with  a  mighty  effort,  even  some  slight  con 
tortion  of  the  facial  muscles.  .  .  .  'Mr.  Loring,  my 
work  has  seldom  had  a — a  token  of  appreciation  that 
I — I  value  m-more — ahem — ho,  ha — ahem,  hem — !'  " 

Tears !  Yes,  there  are  tears  for  those  who  can  shed 
them  in  Nathan  Burke,  where,  indeed,  the  chapters  de 
scribing  Jim  Sharpless's  critical  illness  in  the  shabby 
little  boarding  house  kept  by  the  exasperating  but  piti 
ful  Mrs.  Slaney  read  more  like  Dickens  than  Thack 
eray.  Tenderness  ?  There  is  first  and  last  a  good  deal 
of  it,  expended  oftentimes  upon  individuals  with 
whom  Mrs.  Watts  teaches  us  a  wise  patience.  There 
is  a  deserved  tenderness  in  the  close  of  the  first  part 
of  The  Boardman  Family,  relieved  instantly  by  one 
of  those  swift  transitions  which  occur  in  life.  Sandra 
Boardman  has  decided  to  go  to  New  York.  She  in 
tends  to  become  a  professional  dancer. 

"She  went  to  bed  early  that  night;  and  after  a 
while  Mrs.  Alexander  Boardman,  going  quietly  up 
stairs,  stopped  at  her  granddaughter's  door  and  looked 
in.  There  was  some  disorder;  Sandra's  trunk  had 
already  gone,  but  her  little  valise  stood  open  on  a 
chair,  waiting  for  the  last  odds  and  ends;  there  were 
her  gloves  and  hat  and  her  nattily  rolled  umbrella 
laid  together.  Mrs.  Alexander  went  in  a  step;  by 
the  light  from  the  hall  she  could  see  Sandra  sound 
asleep,  with  her  long,  thick,  black  hair  braided  and 
tied  up  in  a  ribbon,  lying  across  the  pillow ;  she  looked 
very  small  and  young.  On  the  night-stand  beside  the 
bed,  there  was  the  watch  her  father  had  given  her  on 
her  nineteenth  birthday,  a  girl's  watch  that  never  kept 
time,  a  foolish  elegant  trifle;  and  there  was  a  half- 


192  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

eaten  apple  which  she  had  probably  been  too  sleepy 
to  finish.  Somehow  these  things,  this  inefficient 
watch,  this  apple  with  a  bite  or  two  out  of  it,  sud 
denly  seemed  to  the  old  lady  poignantly  pathetic;  a 
hundred  times  she  had  seen  Sandra  thus  in  her  crib, 
with  a  toy,  a  cooky  alongside;  Richard,  too,  when  he 
was  a  baby.  Old  Sarah  Chase  Boardman,  whose  past, 
like  everybody's  past,  must  have  held  some  unpleasing 
chapters,  who  went  to  church  and  subscribed  to  chari 
ties  and  practiced  an  unswerving  courtesy  all  for  no 
better  reason  than  because  it  appeared  to  her  the  part 
of  a  lady,  who  believed  nothing  about  God  save  that, 
if  He  existed,  He  must  surely  be  a  gentleman — old 
Sarah  Boardman  got  down  on  her  knees  then  and 
there  and  put  up  some  lame  petition  for  this  young 
girl. 

"Mrs.  Richard,  passing  by,  saw  her  in  the  attitude 
with  surprise  and  alarm.  'Good  gracious,  Mother, 
what  is  the  matter?'  she  wanted  to  know,  in  a  guarded 
voice. 

"  'Nothing,'  said  Mrs.  Alexander,  rising  stiffly.  'I 
dropped  my  little  gold  pin.  Never  mind,  Lucy,  I 
found  it,  thank  you !' ' 

A  beautifully  illustrative  passage.  It  shows  the 
Defoe  method,  the  enumerative  narration,  at  its  best. 
So  many  writers  would  have  failed  to  infect  us  with 
the  feeling  that  Mrs.  Watts  conveys.  It  is  not  until 
you  have  stepped  inside  Sandra's  room  and  seen,  bit 
by  bit,  what  old  Sarah  Boardman  saw,  that  you  can 
share  her  feeling  and  understand  how  a  very  fine  (but 
also  very  worldly)  old  lady  came  to  kneel  and  "put 
up  some  lame  petition  for  this  girl."  The  conclusion 


MARY  S.  WATTS  193 

emphasizes  what  we  said  at  the  start  of  this  discus 
sion.  Would  you,  well  as  you  might  have  known 
Sarah  Boardman,  have  known  just  how  she  would  be 
have  when  her  daughter-in-law  caught  her  upon  her 
knees  in  Sandra's  bedroom  ?  Mrs.  Watts  knew,  knew 
perfectly  the  rather  pathetic  deception  the  old  lady's 
pride — reserve,  worldliness,  whatever  you  choose  to 
call  it — would  inspire ;  knew  also  the  presence  of  mind 
which  would  enable  her  to  effect  it. 

In  order  of  popularity  Mrs.  Watts's  books  stand 
thus :  Nathan  Burke,  then  The  Legacy,  her  next  book 
after  Nathan  Burke;  then  The  Rise  of  Jennie  Cushing. 
The  comparison  is  somewhat  vitiated  by  the  fact  that 
Van  Cleve,  coming  between  The  Legacy  and  Jennie 
Cushing,  was  published  serially  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
and  must  have  reached  a  great  many  of  Mrs.  Watts's 
readers  that  way  before  it  appeared  in  covers.  The 
Rudder  was  less  successful  than  any  of  the  others, 
though  it  is  too  early  to  judge  of  the  popularity  of 
The  Boardman  Family,  published  in  the  spring  of 
1918.  For  some  reason  which  the  present  writer  is 
unable  to  fathom,  The  Rudder  was  criticised  with  a 
most  unusual  severity  of  opinion  by  those  who  "re 
view"  books  and  commonly  mistake  their  opinions  for 
infallible  fact.  I  have  been  unable  to  perceive  its  in 
feriority  to  the  bulk  of  Mrs.  Watts's  work.  It  is  a 
less  dramatic  story,  so  far  as  external  incident  goes, 
than  most  of  the  novels,  but  in  its  portraiture,  its  fidel 
ity  to  personal  characteristics,  its  humor,  its  sharpness 
of  observation  and  skillful  selection  for  recording,  The 
Rudder  leaves  nothing  to  be  desired.  I  should  rate  it 
with  The  Legacy  while  freely  conceding  that  the  de- 


194  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

veloped  story  of  the  girl  and  woman,  Letty  Breen, 
chief  figure  in  The  Legacy,  more  readily  holds  the 
average  reader's  attention  and  interest. 

The  close  of  The  Legacy,  where  Letty  Breen  asks 
herself:  "Am  7  a  good  woman — a  bad  woman?"  and 
then  answers  "I  do  not  know,"  clearly  foreshadowed 
The  Rise  of  Jennie  Clashing,  which,  since  its  presenta 
tion  in  motion  pictures  with  Elsie  Ferguson  in  the 
title  role,  will  be  in  its  main  outlines  familiar  to  more 
people  than  any  other  story  of  Mrs.  Watts's,  not  even 
excepting  Nathan  Burke.  It  is  a  pity  that  the  film 
representation  twists  the  conclusion  of  the  tale  so  as 
to  affix  the  conventional  happy  ending.  Not  the  in 
evitable  happy  ending — none  can  object  to  a  happy 
ending  where  it  is  inevitable,  nor  desire  another;  it  is 
where  an  unhappy  or  neutral  ending  is  inevitable  that 
we  resent  anything  else  being  foisted  upon  us.  And 
the  true  ending,  the  book  ending,  of  The  Rise  of  Jennie 
Clashing  is  neutral.  It  could  not  be  otherwise.  There 
is  in  Jennie  Gushing,  built  up  by  her  solid  will  and 
fortified  by  her  experience,  a  force  sufficiently  great 
to  neutralize  her  love  for  Don  and  save  her  from 
herself. 

The  Rise  of  Jennie  Cushing  is  the  most  dramatic, 
the  most  artistic,  and  will  be  the  most  enduring  of 
Mrs.  Watts's  books.  It  is  without  any  question  a  really 
great  novel  and  both  in  its  conception  and  its  execu 
tion  it  would  reflect  luster  upon  any  name  in  American 
literature  and  upon  the  literature  of  any  land  on  earth. 
The  popularity  of  Nathan  Burke,  with  its  richness  of 
detail,  its  warmth  of  feeling,  its  lively  narration  and 
its  distinctly  good  and  distinctly  bad  characters,  is 


MARY  S.  WATTS  195 

natural  and  to  be  expected.  Any  one  who  likes  Dick 
ens  will  revel  in  Nathan  Burke.  The  popularity  of 
The  Legacy  is  partly  attributable  to  the  fact  that  it 
followed  Nathan  Burke.  But  the  popularity  of  Jennie 
Cushing  -represents  the  fresh  and  admiring  discovery 
of  Mrs.  Watts  by  an  audience  in  large  part 
different  from  that  she  had  acquired  with  her  earlier 
books.  It  was  a  popularity  wholly  earned  by  Jennie 
Cushing  and  not  a  "carry-over"  from  a  preceding 
book,  as  in  the  case  of  The  Legacy.  That  it  was 
earned  by  the  merit  of  the  book  itself  is  clear  enough 
from  this  fact:  In  the  case  of  Nathan  Burke  and 
The  Legacy  the  reprintings  fell  within  three  or  four 
months;  the  books  sold  off  quickly.  But  Jennie  Cush 
ing  was  published  in  October,  reprinted  in  Novem 
ber — and  the  next  reprinting  was  the  following 
June !  This  was  not  a  book  of  ephemeral  success  and 
made  its  way  slowly  by  sheer  power. 

Power  shows  in  every  line  of  the  story.  Power  of 
a  silent  but  incomparably  wonderful  sort  is  embodied 
in  Jennie  Cushing,  the  girl  whose  infancy  was  spent 
in  a  brothel,  who  learned  completely  and  finally  when 
to  keep  her  lips  shut,  who  was  sent  to  a  reformatory, 
who  went  to  work  as  a  domestic  on  a  farm,  who  gave 
herself  to  be  the  model  and  mistress  of  an  artist,  who 
gave  nothing  that  was  not  hers  to  give,  whose  only 
mistake  was  in  keeping  silent  once  too  often — or  was 
that  a  mistake?  At  any  rate,  Jennie  Cushing  was 
stronger  than  any  one  about  her,  more  human,  broader, 
capable  of  greater  comprehensions,  readier  to  make 
necessary  decisions  and  to  act  upon  them,  able  to  pay 
the  hardest  price  the  world  could  exact  from  her — 


196  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

cool,  courageous  Jennie!  And  yet  she  was  feminine. 
Who  can  forget  the  little  girl  that  was  stricken  with 
the  loveliness  of  the  bronze  statuette  of  two  girls 
blithely  dancing?  But  her  clear  insight!  She  knew 
that  it  would  be  wrong  for  Don  to  marry  her  and, 
in  the  very  torture  of  her  love  for  him,  had  courage 
to  tell  him  so  and  insist  upon  it.  Her  love  she  could 
not  deny,  or  would  not;  one  hesitates  to  say  that  Jen 
nie  could  not  deny  herself  anything. 

The  Boardman  Family  suffers  one  serious  defect. 
After  writing  with  all  her  usual  skill  and  putting  com 
pletely  before  us  the  girl  Sandra  Boardman;  her  con 
temptible  brother;  Max  Levison,  the  theatrical  man 
ager;  and  various  other  absolutely  life-like  and  inter 
esting  persons;  after  getting  our  interest  to  a  high 
pitch  in  the  dilemma  that  confronts  Sandra  respecting 
Levison  as  a  lover  Mrs.  Watts  quite  incomprehensibly 
has  these  three  take  passage  on  the  Lusitania  (they 
could  as  easily  have  sailed  on  any  other  boat)  and  in 
the  destruction  of  the  steamship  Levison  and  Everett 
are  drowned!  The  reader  has  himself  the  sense  of 
being  submarined;  his  interest,  torpedoed  without 
warning,  sinks  without  a  trace.  If  such  a  thing  took 
place  in  a  novel  by  a  less  able  writer  we  should  know 
what  to  think  of  it;  we  should  know  that  the  author 
had  created  a  situation  which  was  beyond  him  and 
from  which  he  could  not  extricate  his  people  without 
a  few  fatalities!  But  no  situation  is  beyond  Mrs. 
Watts;  she  has  proved  that  time  and  again.  It  is  a 
mystery  to  be  cleared  up  later. 

Van  Cleve  is  an  excellent  and  characteristic  piece 
of  work  which,  next  to  Nathan  Burke,  may  perhaps 


MARY  S.  WATTS  197 

best  be  depended  upon  to  engage  the  interest  of  any 
one  whose  natural  or  acquired  tastes  fit  him  to  enjoy 
Mrs.  Watts's  fine  novels  of  the  manners  of  our  time. 
Of  her  Three  Short  Plays,  since  they  are  not  really 
within  the  scope  of  this  book,  we  will  say  merely  that 
An  Ancient  Dance  is  the  most  ingenious  and  dra 
matically  effective.  Civilization  is  splendid  satire  but 
inconclusive  in  its  termination.  The  Wearin'  O'  The 
Green  is  a  farce  that  lacks  the  necessary  madness  and 
fantasticality.  But  all  three  plays  are  most  agreeable 
reading. 

BOOKS  BY  MARY  S.  WATTS 

The  Tenants,  1908. 

Nathan  Burke,  1910. 

The  Legacy,  1911. 

Van  Cleve:  His  Friends  and  His  Family,  1913. 

The  Rise  of  Jennie  Gushing,  1914. 

The  Rudder,  1916. 

Three  Short  Plays,  1917. 

The  Boardman  Family,  1918. 

Father  to  Son,  1919. 

• 

Mrs.  Watts's  books  are  published  by  the  Macmillan 
Company,  New  York, 


CHAPTER  XV 

MARY  E.   WILKINS  FREEMAN 

IF  this  chapter  on  Mary  Wilkins  Freeman,  one  of 
the  best  known  of  American  writers,  seems  dis 
appointingly  short,  the  explanation  is  to  be  found 
in  three  considerations: 

Mrs.  Freeman  is  primarily  a  short  story  writer  and 
not  a  novelist.  Her  successes  have  been  with  short 
stories,  and  they  have  been  many. 

Both  as  a  short  story  writer  and  as  a  novelist 
her  work  is  unimportant,  largely  ephemeral  and  ex 
tremely  overrated.  Ephemerality  in  itself  does  not 
matter;  most  things  are  ephemeral  measured  by  any 
absolute  standards.  Books  come  and  go,  opinions 
change  as  they  ought  to;  the  fleeting  quality  of  the 
mass  of  fiction  is  to  be  taken  a*  a  matter  of  course; 
but  when  there  is  a  persistent  effort  to  maintain  that 
such  writing  as  Mrs.  Freeman's  has  any  permanent 
value  as  a  contribution  to  literature,  it  is  necessary  to 
deny  strongly  and  without  qualification  even  at  some 
risk  of  doing  her  really  excellent  work  injustice.  The 
reader  must  not  construe  what  we  say  about  her  work 
as  an  expression  of  opinion,  but  as  an  assertion  of 
fact.  Dogma  against  dogma  I  Mr.  Howells  and  his 
school  have  so  long  instructed  us  to  accept  without 

198 


MARY  E.  WILKINS  FREEMAN        199 

question  their  estimates  of  her  work  that  it  becomes 
imperative  to  cut  the  ground  from  under  them.  They 
insist  upon  the  literary  value  of  such  writing  as  Mrs. 
Freeman's.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  literary  value 
in  writing.  There  are  no  literary  values,  there  are  only 
values  in  life.  And  what  is  Mrs.  Freeman's  value  in 
life?  Slight,  reminiscential,  pleasing,  sometimes  en 
tertaining,  occasionally  revelatory  of  human  nature, 
but  never  for  a  moment  revealing  anything  unex 
pected,  never  anything  of  which  we  have  not  been  per 
fectly  aware — her  stories  are  cordially  welcome  and 
likeable  (in  general)  without  having  the  slightest  re 
lation  to  the  business  of  living.  We  read  them  and 
sustain  a  faint  consciousness  that  once  in  some  place 
among  a  few  people  they  may  have  had  some  bearing 
on  life.  We  read  them  and  observe  that  in  the  main 
they  are  told  skillfully.  We  are  very  glad  to  have 
them — and  that  is  all. 

The  third  reason  for  the  brevity  with  which  we 
deal  with  her  is  purely  historical.  If  this  book  were 
being  written  in  1898  instead  of  1918,  she  would  oc 
cupy,  and  rightly,  a  considerable  space  in  it.  But  as 
recently  as  1914  a  book  of  her  stories  was  put  out 
with  the  short  story,  The  Copy-Cat,  occupying  first 
place  in  it  and  giving  its  title  to  the  book !  The  story 
deals  with  a  little  girl,  Amelia,  who  was  forever  imitat 
ing  another  little  girl,  Lily.  Amelia  was  plain  and 
Lily  was  pretty: 

"Amelia,  being  very  young  and  very  tired,  went  to 
sleep.  She  did  not  know  that  that  night  was  to  mark 
a  sharp  turn  in  her  whole  life.  Thereafter  she  went 
to  school  'dressed  like  the  frest/  and  her  mother  petted 


200  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

her  as  nobody  had  ever  known  her  mother  could  pet. 

"It  was  not  so  very  long  afterward  that  Amelia,  out 
of  her  own  improvement  in  appearance,  developed  a 
little  stamp  of  individuality. 

"One  day  Lily  wore  a  white  frock  with  blue  rib 
bons,  and  Amelia  wore  one  with  coral  pink.  It  was  a 
particular  day  in  school;  there  was  company,  and  tea 
was  served. 

'  'I  told  you  I  was  going  to  wear  blue  ribbons,' 
Lily  whispered  to  Amelia.  Amelia  smiled  lovingly 
back  at  her. 

"  'Yes,  I  know,  but  I  thought  I  would  wear  pink.' ' 

This  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1914!  This  in  the 
year  when  blood  began  to  flow  as  it  has  never  flowed 
before;  when  free  peoples  everywhere  awoke  to  the 
presence  of  Black  Evil  on  earth;  when  big,  generous 
America  with  all  her  faults  was  not  exactly  likely  to 
be  thrilled  or  touched  or  enlightened  by  the  recital  of 
how  a  plain  little  girl  finally  got  up  enough  gumption 
to  wear  pink  ribbons  instead  of  blue.  And  yet  we 
suppose  the  people  who  set  such  store  by  "literary" 
values  thought  this  a  "delightful  little  story" — "so 
true  a  picture  of  children" — "and  wasn't  that  a  charm 
ing  conceit  of  sleeping  in  each  other's  beds!"  But  it 
is  wretched  stuff,  really.  At  the  end  Mrs.  Freeman 
simply  tells  you  that  after  "that  night"  Amelia's 
mother's  whole  nature  changed  and  the  uninterestingly 
imitative  little  girl  developed  "a  little  stamp  of  indi 
viduality"  and  will  you  please  swallow  all  this  quickly 
on  Mrs.  Freeman's  mere  say-so  because  she  is  tired 
of  writing  and  the  thing  is  already  the  right  magazine 
length  anyway.  Bah! 


MARY  E.  WILKINS  FREEMAN        201 

Mary  E.  Wilkins  Freeman  is  an  extremely  modest 
person.  She  is  of  New  England  stock  in  both  lines. 
Her  ancestors  were  Puritan  colonists.  She  was  born 
in  Randolph,  Massachusetts,  in  1862,  and  received  her 
education  there  and  at  Mount  Holyoke  Seminary.  Ten 
years  of  her  life  were  spent  in  Brattleboro,  Vermont, 
but  after  the  death  of  her  parents  she  returned  to  Ran 
dolph  where  she  made  her  home  until  her  marriage  on 
New  Year's  Day,  1902,  to  Dr.  Charles  M.  Freeman  of 
Metuchen,  New  Jersey.  Since  then  Mrs.  Freeman  has 
lived  in  Metuchen. 

Exactly  when  the  intention  to  write  first  came  to 
her,  Mrs.  Freeman  does  not  remember.  She  always 
felt  that  she  must  work  at  something,  but  did  not 
know  what  it  was  to  be.  Though  she  was  fond  of 
painting  and  sculpture,  her  chief  interest  as  a  girl  was 
reading.  Socially,  her  tastes  were  exceedingly  cath 
olic,  and  she  was  on  the  best  of  terms  with  all  her 
neighbors,  many  of  whom  she  found  herself  studying 
as  characteristic  New  England  types,  thus  uncon 
sciously  preparing  herself  for  the  moment  when  she 
was  to  become  a  writer.  She  likes  "people  who  drop 
their  g's  and  use  the  double  negative,  as  well  as  people 
who  don't." 

Success  as  a  writer  came  to  her  instantly.  She  suf 
fered  none  of  the  rebuffs  and  delays  and  discourage 
ments  usual  to  the  young  author.  Her  earliest  work 
was  done  for  children  and  took  the  form  of  short 
stories  and  poems  in  juvenile  magazines.  Her  first 
grown-up  story  was  The  Old  Lovers,  sent  to  Harper's 
Bazar.  Miss  Mary  L.  Booth,  then  editor  of  that  peri 
odical,  upon  receiving  this  contribution,  written  in  a 


202  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

cramped  and  unformed  handwriting,  evidently  that  of 
a  child,  determined  upon  a  hasty  reading,  but  was  so 
struck  in  the  opening  paragraphs  with  the  humor  and 
the  pathos  of  the  story  that  she  promptly  sent  Mrs. 
Freeman  a  check.  In  the  same  mail  with  the  Bazar 
acceptance  came  a  notification  that  her  story,  The 
Shadow  Family,  had  captured  the  prize  in  a  competi 
tion  conducted  by  the  Boston  Sunday  Budget.  Both 
the  checks  seemed  very  large  to  the  new  writer.  "My 
delight  and  astonishment  knew  no  bounds." 

Mrs.  Freeman  is  a  rather  small  woman,  singularly 
unaffected,  cordial,  frank.  A  friend  once  described 
her  thus:  "A  little,  frail-looking  creature,  with  a 
splendid  quantity  of  pale-brown  hair,  and  dark-blue 
eyes  with  a  direct  look  and  a  clear,  frank  expression- 
eyes  that  readily  grow  bright  with  fun."  Mrs.  Free 
man  has  plenty  of  humor,  is  quiet  and  whimsical,  is 
fond  of  country  ways,  but  confesses  to  fear  of  cows, 
caterpillars  and  all  creeping  things. 

Her  popularity  has  been  sufficient  to  bring  about 
the  translation  of  a  number  of  her  books  into  various 
European  languages. 

BOOKS  BY  MARY  E.  WILKINS  FREEMAN 

The  Debtor. 

The  Fair  Lavinia. 

A  Humble  Romance,  1887. 

A  New  England  Nun,  1891. 

Young  Lucretia,  1892. 

Jane  Field,  1892. 

Giles  Corey,  1893. 


MARY  E.  WILKINS  FREEMAN        203 

Pembroke,  1894. 

Madelon,  1896. 

Jerome — A  Poor  Man,  1897. 

Silence,  1898. 

Evelina's  Garden,  1899. 

The  Love  of  Parson  Lord,  1900. 

The  Hearts  of  Highway,  1900. 

The  Portion  of  Labor,  1901. 

Understudies,  1901. 

Six  Trees,  1903. 

The  Wind  In  the  Rose  Bush,  1903. 

The  Givers,  1904. 

Doc  Gordon,  1906. 

By  the  Light  of  the  Soul,  1907. 

Shoulders  of  Atlas,  1908. 

The  Winning  Lady,  1909. 

The  Green  Door,  1910. 

The  Butterfly  House,  1912. 

Yates  Pride,  1912. 

The  Copy-Cat  and  Other  Stones,  1914. 

The  Jamesons. 

People  of  Our  Neighborhood. 

Edgewater  People,  1918. 

Published  by  Harper  &  Brothers,  New  York;  but 
The  Butterfly  House  is  published  by  Dodd,  Mead.  & 
Company,  New  York. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

ANNA   KATHARINE  GREEN 

THE  real  Anna  Katharine  Green  is  a  terrible 
mystery.  We  do  not  mean  Mrs.  Charles 
Rohlfs  of  156  Park  Street,  Buffalo,  whose 
husband  is  an  expert  maker  of  fine  furniture  and 
who  wrote  Initials  Only  and  The  Leavenworth  Case. 
We  mean  the  Anna  Katharine  Green  Mind,  a  Mind 
no  longer  young  counted  by  years,  a  Mind  as  subtle 
and  powerful  and  clever  as  ever,  counted  by  achieve 
ment.  Read  The  Mystery  of  the  Hasty  Arrow,  pub 
lished  at  the  close  of  1917,  if  you  doubt  that  Mind's 
unabated  mastery.  Anna  Katharine  Green — but  hush ! 
What  awe-inspiring  quality  invests  the  mere  whisper 
of  that  name?  Why  do  cold  shivers  run  up  and 
down  our  backs?  Why  in  our  commonplace  sur 
roundings — porch,  porch  chairs,  typewriter,  manu 
script — why,  why  do  we  chill  all  over?  Why  do  the 
thrills  in  dots  and  dashes  like  a  hurrying  Morse  code 
torture  our  nerves? 

We  will  tell  you. 

It  is  because  last  night  we  opened  a  book  and  read : 


204 


ANNA  KATHARINE  GREEN          205 
I 

WHERE  IS   BELA? 

"A  high  and  narrow  gate  of  carefully  joined  boards, 
standing  ajar  in  a  fence  of  the  same  construction! 
What  is  there  in  this  to  rouse  a  whole  neighborhood 
and  collect  before  it  a  group  of  eager,  anxious,  hesi 
tating  people? 

"I  will  tell  you. 

"This  fence  is  no  ordinary  fence,  and  this  gate  no 
ordinary  gate;  nor  is  the  fact  of  the  latter  standing  a 
trifle  open,  one  to  be  lightly  regarded  or  taken  an  in 
considerate  advantage  of.  For  this  is  Judge  Os- 
trander's  place.  .  .  ." 

We  read.  And  we  read.  The  others  retired  for 
the  night.  The  pale  moon  swam  slowly  through  the 
heavens,  regarding  us  with  a  calm,  cold  indifference. 
The  town  clock  boomed  midnight,  then  one,  then 
two.  Fatality  hung  in  the  air.  Horror  coursed  in  the 
veins  and  the  blood  ceased  to  pulse  through  the  arteries. 
Occasionally  a  ripened  apple  dropped  from  the  nearby 
tree  to  the  ground.  At  the  thud  we  jumped.  But  we 
could  not  stop  until,  on  page  381,  the  last  of  Dark 
Hollow,  we  had  read  the  solemn  words :  "Peace  for 
him;  and  for  Reuther  and  Oliver,  hope!"  Then  we 
crept  off  to  bed.  Utter  exhaustion  of  all  sensation 
brought  swift  sleep.  .  .  . 

It  must  have  been  about  a  third  of  the  way  through 
that  the  conviction  stole  over  us  of  Judge  Ostrander's 
guilt.  Who  murdered  Algernon  Etheridge  in  Dark 


2o6  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

Hollow?  Did  John  Scoville,  executed  for  the  crime? 
Did — shuddering  thought — young  Oliver  Ostrander 
slay  that  friend  of  his  father's  whom  he  hated  so? 
Neither  .  .  .  neither  1  Then  who?  Why,  the  unlike- 
liest  person  in  the  book,  of  course,  and  trust  Anna 
Katharine  Green  to  make  it  plausible  I 

Mrs.  Green — it  is  difficult  to  know  whether  to  call 
Mrs.  Rohlfs  "Miss  Green"  or  "Mrs.  Green"— Mrs. 
Green  cannot  write  "for  a  cent,"  as  slang  has  it;  but 
she  can  write  and  has  written  for  a  good  many  dol 
lars!  And  by  that  we  don't  mean  her  motive  is 
purely  businesslike;  we  prefer  to  believe  that  she  writes 
for  the  exercise  of  her  marvelous  and  peculiar  talent, 
and  to  afford  excitement  and  entertainment  to  many 
thousands  who  read  her  books.  What  is  this  talent? 
(It  is  impossible  in  writing  about  her  to  avoid  falling 
into  the  theatricism  of  her  narrative  style!) 

Did  you  ever  try  to  write  a  mystery  story?  If  you 
have  tried  you  will  understand  much  better  than  we  can 
tell  you.  And  if  you  haven't  it  will  be  necessary  to 
take  a  single  specimen  of  Mrs.  Green's  work  to  illus 
trate  her  powers. 

Dark  Hollow — and  she  never  wrote  a  more  excel 
lent  yarn — centers  about  the  murder  of  Algernon  Ethe- 
ridge  twelve  years  before  the  narrative  begins.  John 
Scoville,  keeper  of  a  tavern,  was  tried  and  executed 
for  the  crime,  swearing  his  innocence.  Etheridge  was 
the  closest  personal  friend  Judge  Archibald  Ostrander 
had.  Circumstances  compelled  Judge  Ostrander  to 
preside  at  Scoville's  trial  and  the  Judge  was  not  merely 
impartial,  but  manifestly  favored,  so  far  as  was  com 
patible  with  fairness,  the  defense.  The  evidence 


ANNA  KATHARINE  GREEN          207 

against  Scoville  was  purely  circumstantial  but  strong. 
He  had  been  in  Dark  Hollow  that  night  at  the  time 
of  the  crime.  Etheridge  was  killed  with  Scoville's 
stick.  Scoville's  character  was  bad. 

For  twelve  years  since  the  crime  Judge  Ostrander 
has  lived  shut  off  from  the  world,  except  for  his  ap 
pearances  on  the  bench.  His  grounds  are  walled  off  by 
a  high  board  fence  within  a  high  board  fence  and  he 
lives  alone  with  a  huge  negro  servant  His  son  and 
he  have  parted  irrevocably. 

When  the  story  opens  this  negro,  Bela,  has  gone 
forth  on  morning  errands,  unprecedentedly  leaving  the 
gate  in  the  fence  ajar!  A  woman  in  purple,  heavily 
veiled,  has  entered  the  grounds.  The  gaping  neighbor 
hood  ventures  in  after  her  but  does  not  find  her.  The 
crowd  comes  upon  the  Judge  sitting  erect  and  appar 
ently  lifeless  in  his  house !  It  is  an  attack  of  catalepsy. 
A  little  later  the  negro,  mortally  wounded  by  an  auto 
mobile,  returns  and  dies  trying  to  guard  the  iron  door 
in  the  house  which  preserves  his  master's  secret 

The  woman  in  purple  turns  out  to  be  Mrs.  Scoville. 
She  sees  the  Judge  and  tells  him  that  his  son,  Oliver, 
has  fallen  in  love  with  her  daughter,  Reuther.  She 
also  tells  him  of  her  conviction  that  her  husband  did 
not  slay  Etheridge.  It  is  a  conviction  arrived  at  since 
his  execution.  Late  as  it  is,  she  is  determined  to  do 
what  she  can  to  uncover  new  evidence. 

Chapter  by  chapter,  piling  sensation  on  sensation, 
Mrs.  Green  writes  of  Mrs.  Scoville's  quest.  There  is 
the  shadow  of  the  man  in  the  peaked  cap  seen  advanc 
ing  into  Dark  Hollow  at  the  hour  of  the  crime.  There 
is  the  picture  of  Oliver  Ostrander  secreted  in  his  fath- 


208  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

er's  house  with  a  band  of  black  painted  across  the  eyes. 
There  is  the  point  of  a  knife  blade  in  the  stick  with 
which  Etheridge  was  killed,  and  the  blade  from  which 
it  was  broken  lies  folded  in  Oliver's  desk.  A  peaked 
cap  hangs  in  Oliver's  closet!  Just  when  every  cir 
cumstance  drives  home  the  conviction  of  Oliver's  guilt 
Judge  Ostrander  shows  Mrs.  Scoville  a  written  state 
ment  that  establishes  the  fact  of  an  earlier  murder  by 
her  husband.  She  is  taken  all  aback  and  for  the 
moment  she  believes  again  that  the  right  man  was  put 
to  death  for  the  murder  of  Etheridge.  But  the  Judge 
allows  her  to  look  at  the  document  a  moment  too  long. 
It  has  been  tampered  with  at  the  close;  forgery  has 
been  done ! 

Oliver  must  be  found,  for  an  accusation  against  him 
has  got  abroad  and  the  police  are  looking  for  him. 
There  is  a  race  between  the  agents  of  the  district  at 
torney  and  the  messengers  of  the  Judge.  He  is  found 
in  a  remote  spot  in  the  Adirondacks  and  flees,  but 
whether  to  return  home  at  his  father's  summons  or 
to  escape  to  Canada,  who  knows  ?  By  a  desperate  drop 
over  the  side  of  a  cliff  he  has  landed  in  a  tree  top. 
The  train  is  not  due  for  fifteen  minutes.  He'll  catch 
it. 

"The  train  south?' 

"  'Yes,  and  the  train  north.    They  pass  here.' ' 

Is  it  a  return  or  a  flight  to  escape  ?  Thus,  in  chap 
ter  after  chapter,  Mrs.  Green  creates  new  suspense, 
introduces  new  thrills.  As  each  lesser  uncertainty  is 
resolved  a  fresh  one  takes  its  place  and  always  the 
great  major  questions  hang  unanswered  over  her  story 
— till  the  very  close.  Then  the  one  closed  avenue  to 


ANNA  KATHARINE  GREEN  209 

a  solution  is  unbarred,  the  stunning  surprise  is  sprung 
and  the  curtain  falls  swiftly  on  a  stupefying  denoue 
ment.  Between  the  big  revelation  and  the  very  end 
of  the  tale  there  is  just  time  enough  and  just  explana 
tion  enough  to  convince  the  reader  of  what  he  would 
least  have  believed  before. 

This  faint  outline  of  a  capital  story  illustrates  Mrs. 
Green's  talent.  Now  for  the  explanation.  The  whole 
art  of  it  consists  in  a  truly  infinite  capacity  for  taking 
pains.  Before  writing  this  story  it  was  necessary  to 
write,  or  get  clearly  in  mind,  the  biographies  of  half 
a  dozen  people.  Their  lives  had  to  be  fully  known 
to  the  author,  even  to  innumerable  incidents  which 
would  not  be  used  in  her  story.  Particularly  was  it 
necessary  to  know  every  aspect  in  the  past  of  the  re 
lations  of  these  people  to  each  other. 

It  was  next  necessary  to  reconstruct  the  crime.  A 
period  of  twenty  minutes  or  half  an  hour  at  a  given 
place  was  under  consideration.  Where  was  this  place 
and  where  did  it  stand  with  respect  to  every  other 
place  in  the  story — Judge  Ostrander's  house,  the  Clay 
more  Inn,  the  ruin  of  Spencer's  Folly?  A  map  had 
to  be  made.  It  is  an  illustration  in  the  book.  But 
much  more  than  a  map  was  necessary.  The  exact 
whereabouts  of  every  one  of  half  a  dozen  persons  for 
the  whole  twenty  minutes  or  half  hour  had  to  be  set 
tled.  Etheridge,  Scoville,  Mrs.  Scoville,  Oliver  and 
Judge  Ostrander  were  all  in  or  near  Dark  Hollow. 
Just  where  was  each  at  every  moment?  Just  what 
was  each  doing?  Just  what  could,  and  did,  each  say 
and  do  and  hear  and  see?  The  author  must  know 
all  these  things  in  order  to  spare  the  reader  what  is 


210  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

irrelevant.  She  must  have  every  inch  of  the  ground 
at  her  fingertips  and  every  instant  clear.  You  don't 
believe  this?  Try  writing  a  story  like  Dark  Hollow, 
improvising  as  you  go  along,  or  working  from  a  mere 
outline,  and  see  what  happens  to  youl 

The  only  improvisation  in  such  work  as  Mrs.  Green's 
is  in  respect  of  what  might  be  called  chapter  climaxes — 
the  brief  thrills,  one  or  more  to  a  chapter,  which 
arise,  administer  their  shock  to  the  reader's  nerves, 
and  are  cleared  up  some  pages  later.  Many  of  these 
are  planned  in  advance,  a  few  suggest  themselves  as 
the  writer  goes  along,  others  are  real  inspirations 
which  have  suggested  themselves  during  the  writing 
and  are  substituted  for  planned  but  less  effective 
climaxes.  Such  is  the  incident  cited  above  where  two 
trains,  one  bound  south  and  the  other  bound  for  Can 
ada,  meet  and  pass  at  the  little  mountain  station. 

It  is  frequently  said  that  the  whole  art  of  a  mys 
tery  story  or  detective  story  of  the  kind  Mrs.  Green 
writes  is  to  direct  suspicion  at  every  person  except 
the  right  one,  until  the  end !  This  is  clever  and  partly 
true,  but  it  takes  no  account  of  the  vast  amount  of 
construction  which  must  go  forward  before  a  sentence 
of  the  story  can  be  put  on  paper;  it  ignores  the  fact 
that  the  criminal,  to  be  convincing,  must  have  figured 
in  the  story  from  the  start,  for  otherwise  he  will  appear 
as  a  desperate  invention  to  help  the  author  out  of 
an  otherwise  insoluble  situation.  Looking  at  Dark 
Hollow  in  retrospect  it  is  quite  easy  to  see  why  certain 
things  had  to  be — so.  Judge  Ostrander  had  to  be  the 
murderer  because  he  was  the  person  least  likely  to 
kill  his  dearest  friend.  Oliver  had  to  be  under  sus- 


ANNA  KATHARINE  GREEN          211 

picion  to  make  Judge  Ostrander's  confession  plausible. 
The  Judge  had  to  be  the  murderer,  furthermore,  that 
Reuther  Scoville  might  not  be  an  unfit  person  to  be 
come  the  wife  of  Oliver.  Oliver  had  to  be  cleared 
that  he  might  be  fit  to  mate  with  Reuther  1  Yes,  yes; 
but  all  this  wisdom  after  the  event  gets  nowhere.  It 
does  not  penetrate  to  the  heart  of  the  action  and  throws 
no  light  on  the  author's  cunning.  Do  you  suppose 
for  a  moment  that  she  made  her  story  out  of  such 
nice  little  expediencies  as  these?  You  can't  build  a 
story  that  way.  It  won't  hold  together  for  a  moment. 

No!  The  real  starting  point  in  Dark  Hollow  was 
the  conception  on  the  part  of  Mrs.  Green  of  a  man 
who  should,  in  a  moment's  fit  of  passion,  slay  his 
closest  friend  and  who  should  thereafter,  for  twelve 
years,  inflict  on  himself  a  peculiar  punishment,  im 
prisoning  himself  in  a  convict's  cell  in  his  own  home! 
All  the  rest — the  painting  of  a  black  band  across  the 
eyes  of  his  son's  portrait  that  they  might  not  look 
on  his  father,  murderer  and  coward;  the  sending  of 
that  son  away  from  home  for  all  time;  the  building 
of  a  double  fence  to  guard  against  intrusion  by  so 
much  as  an  eye  at  a  knothole — all  these  followed. 
Then  on  this  solid  foundation  of  a  single  life,  a  single 
idea,  a  single  stricken  conscience  arose,  course  by 
course,  the  complicated  and  wonderful  (but  solid  and 
sound)  structure  of  the  book. 

That  is  the  talent  of  Anna  Katharine  Green,  ex 
plained,  analyzed  and  illustrated.  Things  there  are 
about  it  that  cannot  be  explained  or  analyzed.  These 
we  pass.  We  have  said  that  she  cannot  write.  It 
is  true.  The  Leavenworth  Case,  and  The  Mystery  of 


212  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

the  Hasty  Arrow  and  Dark  Hollow — every  one  of  her 
many  books  is  wretchedly  written,  full  of  trite  and 
cheap  expressions,  full  of  cliches,  dotted  with  ludicrous 
trifles  of  thought  and  expression,  spotted  with  absurdi 
ties,  as  where  the  negro  Bela  is  struck  and  fatally  in 
jured  by  an  automobile  at  the  outset  of  Dark  Hollow. 
The  car  inflicted  a  terrible  gash  in  his  head  and  we 
are  informed  that  "it  took  a  sixty  horsepower  racing 
machine  going  at  a  high  rate  of  speed  to  kill  him"! 
And  then  it  didn't  do  it  instantaneously!  If  Mrs. 
Green  could  have  had  a  collaborator  with  only  average 
literary  skill  she  would  carry  everything  irresistibly 
before  her.  Her  mind,  joined  to  a  pen  capable  of 
writing  freshly,  simply,  with  dramatic  effect  but  with 
out  theatricism,  without  sentimental  mawkishness, 
would  have  achieved  books  to  be  put  on  the  shelf  along 
side  the  stories  of  Poe,  classical,  perfect,  immortal. 

But  if  she  is  not  immortal  she  will  live  a  long,  long 
time !  Without  ever  having  created  a  character  to  com 
pare  with  Sherlock  Holmes  she  has  constructed  tales 
more  baffling  than  any  of  the  crimes  Sir  Conan  Doyle's 
detective  solved.  She  has  not  had  to  resort  to  exotic 
coloring  as  Doyle  has  sometimes  had  to  do  to  conceal 
thinness  of  story.  She  has  not  had  to  depend  upon 
abstruse  mathematical  ciphers  and  codes  as  Poe  did 
in  The  Goldbug.  She  has  not  had  to  carry  us  through 
generations  and  coincidences  as  Gaboriau  did  in  File 
No.  113.  She  never  employs  the  fanciful  inversions 
and  mystical  paradoxes  by  which  Gilbert  K.  Chester 
ton  establishes,  not  so  much  the  existence  of  crime  and 
criminals,  as  The  Innocence  of  Father  Brown.  She 
can  handle  more  complex  strands  than  Melville  Davis- 


ANNA  KATHARINE  GREEN  213 

son  Post.  But  Mr.  Post  can  write  rings  around  her! 
When  we  get  the  Anna  Katharine  Green  Mind  and  the 
Melville  Davisson  Post  Art  joined  in  a  single  person 
America  will  produce  the  detective  and  mystery  stories 
not  of  a  decade  nor  of  a  generation  but  of  all  time. 
Meanwhile  let  us  give  Mrs.  Green  her  due.  In  her 
way,  and  we  have  tried  to  show  her  way  and  to  dif 
ferentiate  it  from  the  ways  of  others,  she  is  the  most 
accomplished  story-teller  in  American  literary  history. 
She  is  unique,  and  with  anything  unique  it  is  well  to 
be  satisfied ! 

BOOKS  BY  ANNA  KATHARINE  GREEN 

The  Leavenworth  Case.     A.  L.  Burt  Company,  New 
York. 

A  Strange  Disappearance. 
The  Sword  of  Damocles. 
Hand  and  Ring. 
The  Mill  Mystery. 
Marked  "Personal." 
Miss  Hurd — An  Enigma. 
Behind  Closed  Doors. 
Cynthia  Wakeham's  Money. 
Dr.  Izard. 

The  Old  Stone  House  and  Other  Stones. 
7  to  12. 
X.  Y.  Z. 

The  Doctor,  His  Wife  and  the  Clock. 
That  Affair  Next  Door. 
Lost  Man's  Lane. 
Agatha  Webb. 


2i4  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

Risifi's  Daughter:  A  Drama. 

A  Difficult  Problem  and  Other  Stories. 

The  Circular  Study.    Doubleday,  Page  &  Company. 

One  of  My  Sons. 

The  Filigree  Ball.    Bobbs-Merrill  Company. 

The  Defense  of  the  Bride  and  Other  Poems,  1894. 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  New  York. 

The  Millionaire  Baby,  1905.     Burt. 

The  House  in  the  Mist,  1905.    Bobbs-Merrill  Co. 

The  Amethyst  Box,  1905.    Bobbs-Merrill  Co. 

The  Chief  Legatee,  1906.  Dodd,  Mead  &  Com 
pany,  New  York. 

The  Mayor's  Wife,  1907.    Bobbs-Merrill  Co. 

Three  Thousand  Dollars,  1909. 

The  House  of  the  Whispering  Pines,  1910.  Put 
nam's.  Burt. 

Initials  Only,  1911.  Dodd,  Mead.  Burt.  Reprinted 
in  the  Army  and  Navy  Library  of  Detective  Fiction, 
1918. 

Masterpieces  of  Mystery,  1912.  Dodd,  Mead.  Re- 
published  in  1919  as  Room  No.  3.  Dodd,  Mead. 

Dark  Hollow,  1914.     Dodd,  Mead.    Burt. 

The  Golden  Slipper  and  Other  Problems  for  Violet 
Strange,  1915. 

The  Woman  in  the  Alcove,  1916.    Burt. 

The  Mystery  of  the  Hasty  Arrow,  1917.  Dodd, 
Mead, 


CHAPTER  XVII 

HELEN   R.    MARTIN 

A  CHAPTER  on  Helen  R.  Martin  can  hardly  be 
anything  but  a  prolonged  interview,  or  a  pieced 
interview,  somewhat  like  a  patchwork  quilt, 
constructed  from  talks  of  various  persons  with  her 
at  various  times.     And  always  on  the  same  subject — 
her  subject — the  Pennsylvania  Dutch. 

What  there  is  to  say  about  the  writer  and  her  work 
shall  first  be  said.  She  is  the  daughter  of  the  Rev. 
Cornelius  Reimensnyder,  who  came  from  Germany 
to  accept  the  pastorate  of  Lancaster  county,  so  the 
daughter  was  brought  up  among  the  Mennonites.  She 
has  written  a  novel  every  year  or  so  for  the  last  four 
teen  years,  writing  in  the  time  left  over  after  taking 
care  of  her  home  and  her  children,  a  boy  and  a  girl ; 
canvassing  for  suffrage  and  campaigning  for  Social 
ism.  Her  home  is  in  Harrisburg,  the  capital  of  Penn 
sylvania.  Her  first  novel  was  not  of  the  people  among 
whom  she  had  spent  her  life  but  "a  romance  of  life 
as  she  would  like  it  to  be."  Fortunately  it  did  not 
sell,  so  she  was  led  to  look  about  her  for  her  future 
material.  She  did  not  begin  to  write  until  she  met 
Frederick  R.  Martin,  to  whom  she  was  afterward 
married.  He  is  an  instructor  in  music.  And  Mrs. 

215 


216  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

Martin  was  herself  a  teacher.  At  one  time  she  taught 
children  in  a  fashionable  private  school  in  New  York 
City.  She  knew  the  youngsters  rather  better  than  their 
parents. 

Mrs.  Martin,  like  Marjorie  Benton  Cooke  and  Har 
riet  T.  Comstock,  is  interested  in  social  questions.  She 
has  decided  views  on  bringing  up  children,  wealth 
and  poverty;  she  does  not  subscribe  to  Mrs.  Charlotte 
Perkins  Oilman's  views  of  motherhood;  she  is  not  a 
feminist  in  any  general  meaning  of  the  word,  because 
she  believes  that  feminism  in  many  of  its  aspects  is 
a  passing  phase.  As  a  rule  her  preoccupation  with 
these  problems  is  kept  out  of  her  work — the  older 
generation  of  the  people  she  wrote  about  were  blandly 
unaware  that  such  questions  reared  their  heads — but 
her  last  two  novels,  Gertie  Swartz:  Fanatic  or  Christ 
ian?  and  Maggie  of  Virginsburg,  introduce  them  ex 
tensively  and  disastrously.  Mrs.  Martin's  failure  with 
Gertie  Swartz  arose  entirely  from  her  inability  to  as 
similate  such  matter  before  writing  her  story.  As  a 
result  industrial  conditions  and  employees'  welfare  are 
indigestible  lumps  in  the  novel.  Some  subjects  cannot 
be  introduced  bodily  into  a  piece  of  fiction.  They  must 
arise  as  they  arise  in  life  out  of  situations  and  char 
acter.  They  cannot  be  discussed  in  a  story  as  they  are 
discussed  from  a  platform.  They  can  only  act  upon 
the  people  of  the  tale  or  be  acted  upon  by  them;  they 
can  be  discussed^  if  the  representation  of  life  is  to  be 
fairly  accurate,  only  to  the  extent  that  the  situations  of 
the  story  call  for.  It  is  true  that  life  contains  many  fu 
tile  and  windy  discussions,  some  academic,  some  not; 
but  the  only  things  that  count  are  those  which  involve 


HELEN  R.  MARTIN  217 

action  or  precipitate  action  or  express  or  mold  char 
acter.  The  novelist  must  exclude  all  else,  otherwise 
the  novel  will  lack  illusion  and  resemble  nothing  so 
much  as  the  minutes  of  the  last  meeting  of  the  Society 
for  the  Suppression  of  Sociological  Sores. 

Gertie  Swartz  aside,  the  real  controversy  over  Mrs. 
Martin's  work  arises  from  her  studies  of  Pennsylvania 
Dutch  life,  and  is  of  a  sort  to  give  satisfaction  to 
her  as  a  writer.  For  the  very  nature  of  the  contro 
versy  carries  with  it  the  plain  implication  that  she 
has  got  under  the  skin  of  her  people.  It  is  alleged  and 
deposed  that  she  does  not  do  the  Pennsylvania  Dutch 
justice.  The  allegation  was  most  completely  made 
in  the  New  York  Evening  Post  for  April  29,  1916, 
by  Isaac  R.  Pennypacker. 

Briefly,  Mr.  Pennypacker  declared  that  those  who 
knew  the  Pennsylvania  Dutch  "in  a  broader  way" 
than  Mrs.  Martin's  stories  reflect  them  "have  never 
taken  her  pictures  of  the  life  very  seriously."  George 
Schock's  Hearts  Contending,  a  novel  repeatedly  praised 
by  William  Dean  Howells,  "should  be  read  as  a  cor 
rective  of  Mrs.  Martin's  tales."  Elsie  Singmaster  also 
has  had  a  better  understanding  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Germans.  The  Moravians  and  the  famous  Bethlehem 
Bach  Choir  are  proof  of  Pennsylvania  German  culture. 
Read  Whittier's  poem,  The  Pennsylvania  Pilgrim  (he 
thought  it  better  than  Snowbound  but  said  the  public 
would  never  find  it  out!).  Pennsylvania  German  troops 
did  bravely  in  the  Revolution  and  the  Civil  War.  Mrs. 
Martin  admits  that  the  Pennsylvania  Dutch  rise  but  it 
is  ungracious  of  her  to  call  attention  to  the  lingering 


218  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

accent,  because  Americans  speak  French  and  German 
badly.  Besides,  she  does  not  cite  all  the  instances  of 
their  rise  to  high  station.  She  refers  to  their  unpol 
ished  manners  but  great  men,  like  Dr.  Johnson  and 
Edwin  M.  Stanton,  seldom  have  nice  manners.  "Mrs. 
Martin's  curious  comment  on  the  fact  that  the  Penn 
sylvania  Dutchman's  barn  is  larger  than  his  house 
would  be  paralleled  if  she  were  to  find  it  curious  that 
Mr.  Wanamaker's  department  store  is  larger  than  his 
residence."  Is  it?  But  how  would  Mr.  Pennypacker 
account  for  the  fact  that  Judge  Gary's  house  on  Fifth 
avenue  is  larger  than  his  office  at  71  Broadway?  "A 
punctilious  regard  for  good  manners  by  which  she 
sets  such  store  would  forever  have  prevented  Mrs. 
Martin  from  publishing  her  books,  because  the  por 
traits  of  the  people  in  them  are  caricatures."  Look 
out,  Mrs.  Martin!  Some  one  sees  resemblances  in 
your  caricatures ! 

There  is  the  case  against  Mrs.  Martin  and  it  is 
the  highest  compliment  her  work  could  have.  The  next 
highest  compliment  is  the  fact  that  Minnie  Maddern 
Fiske  made  Barnabetta  into  a  play,  Erstwhile  Susan, 
and  appeared  herself  in  the  title-role.  And  the  next 
highest  compliment  is  what  Richard  Watson  Gilder 
of  the  Century  once  said  to  Mrs.  Martin :  "Your  peo 
ple  do  not  converse  on  paper — they  talk.  When  a 
community  is  written  up  that  community  always  re 
sents  it,  even  if  it  is  described  flatteringly.  You  can't 
praise  any  community  enough  to  satisfy  its  own  con 
ceit  about  itself." 

So  much  for  compliments.    If  you  call  for  proofs 


HELEN  R.  MARTIN  219 

ask  Mrs.  Martin  to  show  you  or  read  to  you  (she  won't 
allow  them,  as  a  rule,  to  be  published)  some  of  the 
hundreds  of  letters  she  has  received  from  Pennsyl 
vania  Germans  wanting  to  know  if  So-and-so  was  the 
original  of  this  character,  asking  why  such  and  such 
a  person  was  "put  in  your  book,"  complaining  that 
she  does  not  do  justice  to  Pennsylvania  Dutch  good 
traits,  complaining  that  she  does  not  do  justice  to 
Pennsylvania  Dutch  bad  traits,  as  stinginess  and  self 
ishness  toward  the  womenfolk;  praising  her  delinea 
tion  of  Pennsylvania  Dutch  life,  condemning  her  for 
her  delineation  of  Pennsylvania  Dutch  life.  The  truth 
is  this,  as  Mrs.  Martin  says: 

"The  Pennsylvania  Dutch  don't  like  my  stories. 
That  is,  the  educated  descendants  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Dutch  don't  like  them.  The  people  of  whom  I  write 
generally  are  people  who  read  nothing,  not  even  news 
papers,  except,  as  one  woman  told  me,  'sometimes  meby 
the  comic  section/  But  the  Pennsylvania  Dutch  citi 
zens  of  such  places  as  Reading,  Lancaster,  Lebanon, 
Bethlehem  and  other  cities  resent  my  commentaries 
upon  the  race  from  which  they  have  risen.  Overlook 
ing  the  finer  and  lovable  characters  described  in  my 
books,  they  prefer  to  dwell  upon  the  harsh  people.  I 
wish  more  of  them  would  take  comfort  from  Tillie, 
Mrs.  Dreary,  and  the  rest  of  my  heroines. 

"The  only  Pennsylvania  Dutch  who  enjoy  my  stories 
seem  to  be  those  who  have  moved  West  and  to  whom 
my  books  seem  to  come  like  a  visit  home." 

We  think  the  reader  of  Mrs.  Martin's  novels  will 
thank  us  if  we  forego  a  synoptic  discussion  of  her 


220  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

tales  and  give  instead  what  she  has  to  say,  outside 
her  books,  about  the  people  in  them. 

"It  is  a  part  of  the  common  misconception  that 
the  Pennsylvania  Dutch  of  whom  I  write  are  all  Men- 
nonites.  Now,  Mennonites  are  a  religious  sect,  not 
a  race  or  a  nationality!  I  have  written  very  little 
about  Mennonites.  They  are  as  inoffensive  and  mild 
as  the  Quakers,  and  it  is  absurd  to  confound  characters 
like  Mrs.  Dreary  of  the  play  Erstwhile  Susan  and  her 
foster  son  Jake  (who  are,  of  course,  Pennsylvania 
Dutch)  with  the  sect  of  Mennonites.  Once  a  Penn 
sylvania  Dutchman  becomes  a  Mennonite,  he  gives 
over  his  harshness  and  other  grievous  faults  and  leads 
a  mild,  gentle  and  inoffensive  life.  Of  course  they  are 
all  very  frugal  and  'close' — they  never  outgrow  that. 

"The  Amishmen  are  set  apart  from  the  world  by 
their  hooks  and  eyes.  They  never  wear  buttons  and 
buttonholes  because  buttons  and  buttonholes  are  world 
ly.  All  of  them  wear  the  same  sort  of  garb.  The 
women  fold  kerchiefs  over  their  shoulders  and  across 
the  breast  that  their  too  seductive  charms  may  not 
be  revealed. 

"I  remember  the  suspicion  with  which  Pennsylvania 
Dutch  farmers  and  their  wives  would  invariably  re 
gard  me  when,  applying  for  a  few  days'  board,  I  would 
confess  to  being  a  married  woman,  not  even  a  widow. 
Why,  then,  was  I  going  about  without  my  husband? 
This  made  it  harder  for  me  to  obtain  board  than  if 
I  had  been  an  old  maid.  'Where's  her  husband,  any 
how?'  the  farmer  and  his  wife  would  speculate.  'Her 
out  here  alone  fur  three  days  yet  and  him  not  showin' 
his  face!  It's  somepra  awful  funny  I'  Then  the  wife 


HELEN  R.  MARTIN  221 

would  tell  me  how  in  twenty-five  years  of  married  life 
she  had  never  yet  spent  a  night  away  from  her  spouse. 

"One  morning  as  I  was  sitting  on  the  kitchen  porch 
writing  to  my  husband  the  farmer's  wife  bent  over 
my  shoulder  to  read  what  I  was  writing.  'Now  that 
there  writin','  she  remarked,  'I  can't  read  it  so  very 
good.'  I  quickly  laid  the  blotter  over  the  page.  'I  am 
writing  to  my  husband,'  I  said  hastily,  'to  let  him  know 
where  I  am.'  She  stared  at  me.  'He  don't  know 
where  you're  at  ?'  she  gasped.  'Well,  I  guess  anyhow, 
then!'  Which,  being  interpreted,  meant:  'I  should 
think  it  was  about  time!' ' 

The  following  further  account  of  these  people  is 
taken  from  a  talk  Joseph  Gollomb  had  with  Mrs. 
Martin  while  she  was  in  New  York  to  see  the  opening 
of  Mrs.  Fiske  in  Erstwhile  Susan.  The  interview, 
printed  in  the  New  York  Evening  Post  of  January  22, 
1916,  provoked  Mr.  Pennypacker's  blanket  indictment 
which  we  have  already  recapitulated : 

"You  can  tell  the  Pennsylvania  Dutchman  by  his 
speech,  even  after  he  sheds  his  queer  clothes  and 
barber  ing  and  takes  on  the  guise  of  the  average  Amer 
ican,"  explained  Mrs.  Martin.  "A  bellboy  in  Allen- 
town  once  disarmed  my  wrath  with,  'Was  you  bellin' 
for  me?  I  didn't  hear  it  make.'  I  knew  him  then 
as  coming  from  my  people.  His  father  probably  would 
say,  cocking  his  weather  eye,  'It  looks  for  rain.  I'm 
sure  it's  going  to  make  something  down.'  Or  his 
mother,  pricing  at  market,  would  ask,  'For  what  do 
you  sell  your  chickens  at?  I  want  to  wonder.  I  feel 
for  getting  that  fat  one.'  Your  washerwoman,  with 
all  the  deference  in  the  world,  will  refer  to  your  hus- 


222  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

band  and  hers:  'Does  your  Charlie  like  his  shirt 
ironed?  My  mister  don't.' 

"Enter  Cashtown,  Virginsville,  or  Bird-In-The- 
Hand  (these  are  actual  towns).  You'll  see  houses 
painted  flagrant  red  or  yellow  or  pink ;  flower  gardens 
gorgeous  with  color.  And  there  all  the  display,  or 
even  trace  of  love  of  physical  beauty,  stops.  The 
homes  are  immaculate  but  ugly.  The  parlor  is  fur 
nished  at  marriage,  then  shut  up  for  years. 

"Most  of  the  living  is  in  the  kitchen.  The  barn  is 
bigger  than  the  house  and  is  more  modern  than  the 
kitchen.  That  is  because  the  Pennsylvania  Dutchman 
is  parsimonious  with  everything  but  the  labor  of  his 
women.  He'll  buy  modern  plows,  an  automobile  to 
take  his  products  to  market,  modern  harness  to  save 
his  horse.  Up-to-dateness  in  the  barn  means  more 
money  in  his  pocket.  But  he  won't  spend  a  cent  to 
save  his  wife  or  his  daughter  a  bit  of  work.  That  is 
what  they  are  for — to  work  for  the  men  folks  in  the 
kitchen  or  near  it. 

"When  a  young  man  goes  courting,  his  eyes  are  not 
blinded  with  Cupid's  bandage.  They  are  wide  open 
to  note  how  the  prospective  bride  qualifies  as  a  frugal, 
hardworking  housewife.  I  watched  a  young  man 
studying  three  girls,  his  object  matrimony.  They  were 
sewing  and  he  made  a  test  of  their  frugality  by  the 
way  they  tore  off  their  threads.  The  girl  who  tore  off 
her  thread  closest  to  the  stitch  appealed  to  him  most. 
Later  he  watched  them  at  pie  making.  With  another 
test  in  mind  he  asked  each  of  them  for  the  waste 
dough  scraps.  One  of  the  girls,  wanting  to  make  a 
hit,  gave  him  generously.  The  girl  who  had  won  in 


HELEN  R.  MARTIN  223 

the  first  test  scrimped  a  few  crumbs  for  him — and 
won  his  hand  and  heart.  Soon  after,  his  foot  was 
seen  on  the  rocker  of  her  chair  as  they  talked — which 
is  Pennsylvania  Dutch  for  'I  mean  to  marry  this 
girl!'  .  .  . 

"What  has  given  them  the  passion  for  pinching 
their  souls  I  don't  know.  It  may  be  a  narrow  and 
too  literal  interpretation  of  the  Bible — for  they  are 
intensely  religious  in  the  orthodox  sense.  The  great 
majority  of  them  sooner  or  later  join  one  of  the  sev 
eral  religious  sects — Mennonites,  Dunkards,  Amish,  or 
some  other.  'I  feel  to  be  plain,'  they  say,  and  join 
one  of  these  sects. 

"Their  word  is  as  good  as  gold — but  they'll  quibble 
with  their  word.  A  grower  will  get  his  wife  to 
water  the  tobacco  leaf,  to  make  it  weigh  more.  'Did 
you  water  this  tobacco?'  the  intending  buyer  asks 
the  farmer.  'No/  the  farmer  answers  with  literal 
truth.  But  once  he  gives  his  literal  word  it  is  good 
to  the  last  penny." 

These  people  are  without  the  sense  of  citizenship. 
"They  don't  think  about  it  at  all,"  said  Mrs.  Martin  to 
an  interviewer  whose  report  of  her  was  printed  in 
the  Evening  Sun,  New  York,  April  7,  1915.  "They 
have  no  problems  and  therefore  they  are  contented 
with  their  lot.  They  are  wary  of  education ;  they  think 
it  makes  rogues.  'Look  at  those  grafters  in  Harris- 
burg!'  they  will  say." 

Mrs.  Martin  once  told  a  capital  story  of  the  Amish. 
This  sect  has  a  rule  that  any  one  who  breaks  a  law 
of  the  meeting  shall  be  penalized  by  living  apart  from 
his  wife  or,  in  the  case  of  a  woman,  her  husband; 


224  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

denied  even  the  solace  of  recrimination.  The  wife  of 
a  particularly  stingy  member  of  the  sect  devised  a 
cunning  punishment  for  him  by  herself  breaking  one 
of  the  laws  of  the  meeting.  "I  don't  know  what  rule 
she  broke,"  Mrs.  Martin  said.  "It  may  have  been 
sewing  a  button  on  her  dress  instead  of  a  hook  and 
eye,  or  she  may  have  advocated  painting  the  house. 
In  any  event  her  husband  became  an  outcast,  unable 
even  to  speak  to  his  wife. 

"I  used  the  instance,  somewhat  colored,  in  a  story. 
The  result  was  that  I  got  a  letter  from  an  Amish 
preacher  informing  me  that  if  I  would  give  him  the 
name  of  the  man  who  was  so  stingy  to  his  wife  the 
church  would  punish  him  properly.  Of  course  I  re 
plied  that  the  instance  was  purely  fictitious.  To  which 
the  reply  of  the  minister  was  that  he  could  not  under 
stand  why  I  wrote  such  lies  about  the  sect!" 

Introducing  Mrs.  Martin,  a  bright,  cheerful,  little 
bit  of  a  woman,  at  a  booksellers'  convention  in  New 
York,  William  Hard  declared  that  she  and  Margaret 
Deland  were  like  two  large  railroad  systems  each  oper 
ating  exclusively  in  its  own  territory  by  a  tacit  under 
standing.  Mrs.  Martin,  to  accept  the  simile,  freights 
great  quantities  of  valuable  stuff  and  yields  far  bet 
ter  dividends  than  some  of  the  big  transcontinental 
lines ! 

BOOKS  BY  HELEN  R.  MARTIN 

Elusive  Hildegarde. 
Her  Husband's  Purse. 
His  Courtship. 


HELEN  R.  MARTIN  225 

Warren  Hyde. 

Tillie,  a  Mennonite  Maid,  1904. 

Sabina,  a  Story  of  the  Amish,  1905. 

The  Betrothal  of  Elypholate  and  Other  Tales  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Dutch,  1907. 

The  Revolt  of  Anne  Royle,  1908. 

The  Crossways,  1910. 

When  Half-Gods  Go,  1911. 

The  Fighting  Doctor,  1912. 

The  Parasite,  1913. 

Barnabetta,  1914. 

For  a  Mess  of  Pottage,  1915. 

Martha  of  the  Mennonite  Country,  1915. 

Those  Fitzenbergers,  1917. 

Gertie  Swarts:  Fanatic  or  Christian?  1918. 

Maggie  of  Virginsburg,  1918. 
* 

Mrs.  Martin's  books  are  published  by  Doublcday, 
Page  &  Company,  New  York,  and  the  Century  Com 
pany,  New  York. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

SOPHIE  KERR 

"July  19,  1918. 

"My  dear  Mr.  Overtoil : 

"TT  has  been  almost  impossible  for  me  to  write  this. 
I  have  made  a  dozen  beginnings  and  invariably 
found  myself  drifting  off  into  reminiscences  of 
my  childhood  and  funny  lies  about  what  1  think  and 
feel.  Good  heavens!  what  do  I  think  and  feel?  I 
don't  know.  I  really  don't.  I  have  never  had  the 
time  nor  found  myself  of  sufficient  interest  to  sit 
down  and  think  about  myself  subjectively.  I  am  afraid 
that  this  is  a  very  queer  narrative  and  very  dull,  but 
at  least  I  have  tried  to  give  only  facts.  .  .  . 

"I  was  born  near  Denton,  Maryland,  a  small  town 
located  in  the  'sandy  belt'  of  the  Eastern  Shore.  It 
is  a  narrow-minded,  kind-hearted,  conventional,  self- 
respecting  community,  not  very  enterprising — an  aver 
age  little  semi-Southern  town.  My  father  had  a 
nursery  and  fruit  farm,  and  cared  more,  I  think,  for 
beautiful  trees  than  he  did  for  people.  We  had  lovely 
arborvitae  and  red  japonica  hedges,  magnolia  trees, 
an  extraordinary  collection  of  evergreens,  and  many 
unusual  foreign  flowering  shrubs. 

"I  went  to  school  at  Denton,  the  public  school,  and 
the  embryo  High  School  of  twenty  to  twenty-five 
years  ago.  And  then  I  went  to  college. 

226 


SOPHIE  KERR  227 

"As  a  child  I  read  everything  that  I  could  lay  hands 
on  and  we  always  had  books  and  magazines  at  home. 
But  my  reading  was  not  guided  and  it  was  my  great 
misfortune  not  to  find  among  my  teachers,  either  in 
school  or  college,  even  one  with  any  special  mental 
quality"  or  deep  and  sound  culture,  or  even  any  vital 
enthusiasm — with  the  exception  of  the  psychology 
teacher  at  college. 

"I  began  to  write  at  college,  the  sort  of  imitative 
stuff  that  most  college  girls  write — very  highbrow 
essays  on  Maeterlinck,  and  that  kind  of  thing.  Not 
much  fiction  or  poetry,  as  I  remember.  But  I  had 
my  ideas  of  a  writing  career,  for  all  that.  When  I 
was  graduated  from  college  I  was  just  eighteen  and  I 
came  home  and  told  my  father  that  I  was  going  to 
be  an  author  and  he  might  as  well  buy  me  a  typewriter 
— I  was  always  of  a  severely  practical  turn  of  mind. 
I  got  the  typewriter  and  began  to  write  stories,  first 
in  longhand,  then  copying  them  single-spaced  on  the 
machine;  they  made  terrifying  manuscripts.  One  got 
into  the  Ladies'  World,  and  one  into  the  Country  Gen 
tleman,  and  one  into  Truth,  which  was  then  a  flourish 
ing  publication.  And  about  that  time,  after  I  had 
been  home  for  a  couple  of  years,  at  the  suggestion 
of  an  old  friend  of  my  father's  I  went  to  the  Uni 
versity  of  Vermont  for  a  year  of  graduate  work.  And 
I  began  to  take  a  special  course  in  history  there  with 
Professor  Samuel  Emerson. 

"I  tell  this  with  particularity,  because  it  was  the  very 
best  thing  that  ever  happened  to  me.  As  I  worked 
with  Professor  Emerson,  I  gradually  and  painfully 
became  aware  that  I  did  not  know  how  to  use  my 


228  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

mind,  and  that  my  education  was  of  the  most  shocking 
superficiality.  I  learned  that  I  didn't  know  how  to 
think.  I  will  admit  that  I  was  surprised  and  oh, 
how  humiliated!  If  I'd  only  thrown  myself  on  Pro 
fessor  Emerson's  mercy  and  told  him  that  I  knew  my 
shortcomings  and  asked  him  to  help  me!  Bu!  I  was 
too  youthfully  proud  for  that,  and  I  went  on,  dimly 
trying  to  get  at  the  thing  myself  and  marking  with 
a  hopeless  appreciation,  which  would  have  doubtless 
amazed  the  Professor  had  he  guessed  it,  the  truly 
wonderful  way  in  which  he  used  his  own  exceptional 
intellectuality. 

"It  is  a  fine  thing  to  know  what  you  do  not  know.  It 
set  me  to  work  to  try  to  get  what  I  did  not  have — 
a  disciplined,  well-ordered,  logical  mind,  a  store  of 
knowledge,  a  really  broad  culture.  Alas,  I  never  got 
any  of  them,  and  I  never  shall.  It  takes  different 
training  and  environment  from  infancy  to  produce 
them,  as  well  as  greater  capabilities  than  mine.  But 
I  did  at  least  get  this — the  habit  of  thinking  things 
out  for  myself,  and  a  poor  opinion,  thought  out  by 
the  individual,  is  better  than  a  lazy  acceptance  of  some 
one  else's  say-so. 

"Naturally,  my  year  with  Professor  Emerson  gave 
me  a  very  low  opinion  of  my  chances  to  become  a 
writer.  I  let  writing  alone  for  a  while,  and  then  be 
gan  doing  little  light  things  for  the  Pittsburgh  Ga 
zette,  one  of  whose  staff  I  had  met  while  on  a  visit  to 
Pittsburgh.  They  were  mostly  little  essays — though 
that  word  is  really  too  dignified  for  them — on  the 
foibles  and  fashions  of  the  time.  Sometimes  a  drop 
or  two  of  sentiment  and  little  amusing  incidents  that 


SOPHIE  KERR  229 

I  gathered  when  visiting  in  Washington  and  Baltimore 
— we  Southerners  are  great  visitors,  you  know — occa 
sionally  a  scrap  of  very  light  verse. 

"But  this  was  not  enough.  I  got  restless  and  I  wrote 
to  the  Gazette  people  and  asked  for  a  job.  I  got  it — 
I  was  to  run  the  woman's  page  of  their  evening  paper, 
and  do  Sunday  specials.  After  I  arrived  the  duties  of 
music  critic  were  added,  and  later  I  had  charge  of  a 
Sunday  supplement.  The  people  on  the  Gazette  were 
very  kind  and  patiently  tutored  me  through  my  green 
horn  days.  The  training  was  excellent  and  I  worked 
there  very  happily  for  several  years. 

"But  I  had  been  trying  some  magazine  work — more 
light,  semi-humorous  stuff,  and  the  Woman's  Home 
Companion  bought  several  of  my  pieces.  I  went  to 
New  York  to  see  them  in  the  spring  and  in  the  fall 
I  asked  them  for  a  job.  And  got  it, — assistant  to 
Miss  Gertrude  B.  Lane,  who  was  then  the  assistant 
editor,  and  is  now  the  editor. 

"I  have  stayed  with  the  Companion  ever  since,  save 
for  a  year  when  I  went  with  the  ill-starred  Circle,  and 
now  I  am  managing  editor.  All  this  covers  a  period 
of  over  ten  years. 

"After  I  got  to  New  York  the  writing  fever  got 
me,  and  I  tried  some  stories  and  more  short  articles 
of  sentiment  and  humor.  Some  of  these  were  pub 
lished  and  some  of  them  came  back  to  me.  More 
and  more  I  tried  to  do  fiction,  and  more  and  more  I 
did  it:  now  I  have  three  books  out — Love  at  Large, 
The  Blue  Envelope  and  The  Golden  Block — and  an 
other  in  the  works,  and  I've  written  innumerable  short 
stories,  most  of  which  have  been  published.  Of  course 


23o  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

the  very  best  story  I  ever  wrote  I  cannot  sell.  I  occa 
sionally  run  across  a  copy  of  that  story  in  my  rejected 
manuscript  drawer  and  I  say,  'Never  mind — some  day 
I'll  wish  you  on  an  editor,  yet' 

"None  of  my  stories  are  in  the  least  autobiographi 
cal,  and  I  rarely — almost  never — put  real  people  or  in 
cidents  in  my  stories,  and  then  only  as  a  foundation 
on  which  the  action  of  the  story  may  go  forward.  My 
stories  are  built  up  from  my  imagination,  character 
after  character,  plot,  action  and  finale.  I  try  to  work 
out  everything  logically,  and  after  I  have  written  a 
story  I  go  over  it  and  turn  the  cold  eye  of  criticism 
on  its  chronology  and  the  convincingness  of  its  detail. 
Heaven  fore  fend  that  I  should  intimate  that  I  make 
no  mistakes  in  these, — but  at  least  I  try  to  get  them 
right.  That  is  where  my  long  editorial  training  is  an 
asset 

"Furthermore,  what  my  various  characters  say  does 
not  necessarily  reflect  my  own  views  or  beliefs — I  have 
no  propaganda  spirit — the  story's  the  thing.  Time  and 
time  again  have  indignant  readers  berated  me  for 
beliefs  expressed  in  the  speeches  of  my  characters — 
beliefs  which  were  at  wide  variance  with  my  own,  but 
perfectly  in  keeping  with  the  character  who  expressed 
them. 

"(I  seem  to  be  wandering  away  from  my  theme, 
Mr.  Overton,  and  truly,  it  all  seems  very  silly  and  flat 
to  me.  Here  are  some  unrelated  facts  which  you 
may  be  able  to  use  somehow — they  sound  like  the  an 
swers  to  an  Alice  in  Wonderland  questionnaire.) 

"I  read  heaps  of  biography  and  autobiography  and 
fiction  and  poetry,  and  I  do  not  read  any  of  these  be- 


SOPHIE  KERR  231 

cause  of  the  possible  effect  they  may  have  on  my 
work,  but  because  I  like  to.  I  read  all  the  magazines, 
too,  but  because  it  is  part  of  my  job  to  see  what  they 
are  doing.  I  would  rather  be  unhappy  than  uncom 
fortable.  I  am  a  good  cook  and  like  to  do  it;  indeed 
I  can  make  better  gingerbread  and  better  spoon-bread 
and  better  strawberry  preserves  than  any  one  in  the 
world — this  is  not  arrogance,  but  a  beautiful  excep 
tional  truth,  as  Mr.  Bob  Davis  [Robert  H.  Davis, 
editor  of  Munsey's  Magazine]  would  say.  I  work 
very  hard,  all  the  time,  and  I  do  not  like  parties  and 
teas  and  such  and  never  go  to  them,  when  I  can  get 
out  of  it.  I  write  whenever  I  have  any  time  and  I 
have  trained  myself  to  use  any  time  I  can  get  and 
to  go  on  with  a  story  without  re-reading  what  I've 
already  written,  even  after  a  lapse  of  several  days.  I 
am  an  individualist  without  having  the  least  convic 
tion  that  it's  the  best  thing  to  be.  I  do  not  take  my 
own — or  most  other  people's — writing  very  seriously. 
I  believe  that  there  was  never  a  time  when  so  many 
people  were  writing  and  writing  well,  but  saying  noth 
ing  of  interest  or  value.  On  the  other  hand,  I  believe 
that  there  is  a  lot  of  big  work  being  done  and  that 
the  mediocre  stuff  doesn't  really  obscure  it.  I'd  rather 
be  an  editor  than  a  writer,  but  I  like  to  be  both. 

"(Now,  really — this  is  getting  'curiouser  and  curi- 
ouser,'  to  revert  again  to  Alice.  Will  it  do — or  won't 
it?.  And,  if  not,  what  have  I  left  unsaid  that  I 
ought  to  have  said?  I  am  gradually  working  myself 
up,  I  am  afraid,  into  a  state  of  self-conscious  muzzi- 
ness.  And  I, don't  want  that  to  go  into  your  book.)" 


232  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

So  writes  Sophie  Kerr  (Mrs.  Sophie  Kerr  Under 
wood)  in  response  to  an  appeal  for  some  information 
about  herself  that  might  legitimately  gratify  the  natu 
ral  curiosity  of  her  readers.  Her  readers  are  a  mul 
titude  !  She  has  had  stories  in  "all  the  magazines,"  so 
to  speak ;  the  statement  doesn't  exaggerate  much.  She 
hasn't  had  a  story,  so  far  as  we  know,  in  the  New  Re 
public  but  when  that  Effort  decides  to  take  up  the  pub 
lication  of  short  stories  doubtless  she  will! 

Mrs.  Underwood's  short  stories  need  no  introduc 
tion  (to  use  the  sacred  formula),  and  anyway  we 
are  here  concerned  with  her  as  a  novelist,  and  primarily 
with  her  as  the  author  of  The  Blue  Envelope  and  The 
Golden  Block. 

Both  these  stories  are  concerned  with  women  in  busi 
ness  and  there  the  resemblance  pretty  nearly  stops. 
The  Blue  Envelope  has  for  its  heroine  a  young  girl 
(who  tells  the  story)  under  twenty.  Leslie  Brennan 
is  pretty,  a  pretty  butterfly,  used  to  nothing  but  spend 
ing  money  and  having  a  joyous  if  innocent  time.  She 
lives  with  Mrs.  Alexander,  a  woman  of  family  and 
breeding  and  wealth.  Her  guardian,  Uncle  Bob,  pays 
her  bills.  But  when  Mrs.  Alexander  is  summoned  to 
Maine  by  illness  Leslie  goes  to  live  with  the  Morrisons 
and  meets  Randall  Heath.  Heath  makes  love  to  her 
and  the  shock  when  she  finds  out  that  he  was  only 
after  her  money  makes  somewhat  easier  compliance 
with  the  unusual  wish  of  her  dead  father  that  she 
spend  two  years  earning  her  living. 

This  adventure — earning  your  living  is  the  greatest 
adventure  in  the  world  and  Sophie  Kerr  can  prove  it 
to  you! — this  enterprise  takes  Leslie  to  New  York. 


SOPHIE  KERR  233 

And  there  she  meets  Minnie  Lacy  who  has  long  earned 
a  living  and  knows  a  lot  about  men's  neckties,  being 
engaged  in  the  business  of  making  them.  And  there, 
also,  after  getting  a  stenographer's  training  and  some 
education  in  the  work  of  a  secretary,  Leslie  enters  the 
employ  of  Ewan  Kennedy,  inventor  of  explosives. 

The  "blue  envelope"  doesn't  make  its  appearance 
until  along  toward  the  end  of  the  story.  It  contains 
the  formula  for  a  powder  which  he  is  going  to  give 
to  the  United  States  Government — sarnite.  The  for 
mula  must  be  delivered  to  the  Chief  of  Ordnance  in 
Washington.  Certain  persons,  agents,  presumably,  of 
a  foreign  government,  are  bending  heaven  and  earth  to 
get  the  sarnite  formula.  They  will  stop  at  nothing. 
And  Leslie  Brennan  has  the  task  of  delivering  it  to 
the  Chief  of  Ordnance. 

Does  it  sound  like  a  good  story?  It  does.  And  is 
it?  It  is.  So  good  that  you  feel  much  more  like 
telling  it  than  analyzing  it.  But  to  "give  it  away" 
would  be  a  very  unfair  piece  of  business.  In  analyzing 
it  what  shall  we  say?  The  Blue  Envelope  is  simple, 
straightforward,  absorbing  and  thoroughly  enjoyable 
because  of  the  perfect  naturalism  of  narration.  We 
don't  mean  realism — abused  word!  We  mean  nat 
uralism.  And  what  is  naturalism?  Why,  simply  the 
knack,  art,  faculty  or  gift  of  inventing  incidents, 
drawing  characters,  writing  conversation,  describing 
action  in  such  an  unaffected  manner  that  it  all  seems 
the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world! 

Now  realism  is  never  naturalism.  A  great  realist 
may  stick  close  to  life  and  use  actual  occurrences  or 
real  people  in  his  books  but  we  call  him  a  realist  be- 


234  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

cause  he  makes  us  see  in  what  he  sets  before  us  things 
we  never  have  seen  before.  Without  any  desire  to 
be  paradoxical — we  are  dead  in  earnest — it  must  be 
asserted  flatly  that  the  realist  is  as  unreal  as  the  roman 
ticist.  Often  more  so.  The  realist  is  simply  one  ex 
treme,  of  which  the  romanticist  is  the  other.  The 
naturalist  comes  in  between.  And  Sophie  Kerr  is  first 
of  all  a  naturalist  in  this  special  sense  of  the  word. 
Whether  her  incidents  are  real  or  probable  or  unreal 
and  improbable  she  never  fails  in  making  them  plausi 
ble,  completely  so. 

It  might  be  argued  that  to  be  perfectly  and  pleas 
antly  and  interestingly  plausible  is  better  than  to 
achieve  the  most  surprising  realism  or  the  most  trans 
cendental  romance.  We  think  that,  in  ninety-nine  cases 
out  of  a  hundred,  it  is ;  we  believe  that  unless  a  writer 
has  that  gift  in  the  nth  degree  commonly  called  genius, 
unless  he  is  so  matchless  a  romanticist  as  Joseph  Con 
rad  or  so  unsurpassed  a  realist  as  Flaubert  or  Thomas 
Hardy,  he  had  better  pray  and  struggle  above  every 
thing  for  the  faculty  of  plausibility,  interesting  plausi 
bility,  worth  while  naturalism!  It  is  because  we  be 
lieve  this  that  we  hold  Sophie  Kerr  to  have  found  and 
to  be  on  the  right  track.  It  is  because  of  this  our 
belief  in  her  strong,  fledged  naturalism  that  we  expect 
sound  and  excellent  work  from  her,  work  showing  dis 
tinct  growth  both  in  intrinsic  value  and  in  popular 
success.  The  first  stage  of  that  growth  is  evidenced 
for  everybody  in  the  contrast  between  The  Blue  Enve 
lope  and  its  successor  from  her  pen,  The  Golden  Block. 

The  Golden,  Block  is  part  of  the  life  story  of  a  busi 
ness  woman,  Margaret  Bailey,  and  the  most  important 


SOPHIE  KERR  235 

part.  The  novel  finds  her  a  secretary  of  Henry  Golden, 
manufacturer  of  paving  blocks,  and  leaves  her  his 
partner.  It  finds  her  practically  a  manager  of  his  busi 
ness  at  $40  a  week  and  leaves  her  a  sharer  in  his 
business  at  possibly  $40,000  a  year.  The  book  begins 
on  a  note  of  success,  of  triumph ;  the  Golden  Company 
has  got  a  contract  for  street  paving  in  New  York 
which  means  the  difference  between  hundreds  of  thou 
sands  clear  profit  and  bankruptcy.  This  has  happened 
mainly  because  Margaret  Bailey  is  a  business  woman — 
a  much  better  business  woman  than  Henry  Golden  is 
a  business  man.  Now  business  women  are  not  too 
attractively  drawn  in  most  of  our  fiction.  They  are 
new  people,  and  the  fictioneer  is  tempted  to  draw  them 
in  too  harsh,  too  straight  lines;  to  caricature  a  little  as 
Dickens  used  to  caricature,  in  order  to  bring  out  pecu 
liarities  and  get  the  "effect."  Sophie  Kerr  doesn't  do 
it  with  Margaret  Bailey;  the  most  praiseworthy  and 
most  skillful  thing  in  that  admirable  story  The  Golden 
Block  is  the  way  in  which  the  author  keeps  Margaret 
Bailey  human.  She  does  it  by  naturalism.  Margaret 
is  engrossed  by  the  business  of  the  Golden  Company 
but  she  is  also  engrossed  in  securing  the  education  of 
her  sister  and  brother,  the  comfort  and  happiness  of 
her  father  and  mother,  the  welfare  of  the  whole  fam 
ily.  Breath  of  her  life  though  business  is,  you  feel  all 
the  time  that  she  would  sacrifice  it  completely  if  the 
happiness  of  Rose  Bailey  or  the  other  Baileys  collec 
tively  required  such  an  offering.  But  of  course  the 
surest  way  to  promote  their  happiness  is  to  succeed 
herself. 


236  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

Margaret  Bailey  is  a  character  to  be  proud  of  and  we 
hope  Sophie  Kerr  is  proud  of  her.  She  is  as  clear- 
visioned  as  any  heroine  of  fiction;  she  is  as  clear- 
visioned  as  such  women  are  in  life!  She  is  not  afraid 
of  being  called  unwomanly,  because  she  knows  that  this 
only  means  that  she  does  not  conform  to  a  handed- 
down  ideal.  She  does  not  attempt  to  formulate  a 
philosophy  of  sex  or  love  or  life  on  the  basis  of  her 
own  feelings.  She  speaks  and  thinks  only  for  herself 
— not  of  herself  except  when  asked  to  explain.  She 
finds  no  time  to  indulge  in  self-pity,  but  that  does  not 
mean  that  she  is  hard.  No!  She  is  merely  happy! 
She  is  doing  what  she  can  do  best  and  what  she  most 
wants  to  do.  "You  ought  to  have  been  a  man,"  is 
the  recurring  refrain  dinned  in  her  ears,  usually  as  a 
tribute  of  admiration  but  frequently  with  an  implica 
tion  of  disapproval,  as  if  the  Creator  had  made  a 
mistake  somehow.  "It's  my  belief  that  there's  no  sex 
in  brains,"  Margaret  falls  into  the  habit  of  replying. 
She  might  have  added:  "And  there's  no  brains  in 
sex,  either!" 

If  young  writers  must  imitate,  must  go  through  a 
period  of  playing  the  sedulous  ape,  as  Stevenson  called 
it,  we  hope  that  more  of  them  will  cease  to  imitate 
the  Great  and  Peculiar  Few  and  imitate  such  exem 
plars  of  intelligent  and  growing  naturalism  as  Mrs. 
Underwood.  It  will  make  the  approach  to  a  recogni 
tion  of  their  own  powers  less  painful.  And  for  Sophie 
Kerr  we  hope  only  that  she  may  continue  as  she 
has  begun  and  keep  growing. 


SOPHIE  KERR  237 

BOOKS  BY  SOPHIE  KERR 

Love  at  Large,  1916. 
The  Blue  Envelope,  1917- 
The  Golden  Block,  1918. 
The  See-Saw,  1919. 

Love  at  Large  was  published  by  Harper  &  Brothers, 
New  York.  Sophie  Kerr's  other  books  are  published 
by  Doubleday,  Page  &  Company,  New  York. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

MARJORIE  BENTON  COOKE 

OF  course  Marjorie  Benton  Cooke  is  Bambi,  or, 
if  you  prefer,  Bambi  is  simply  Marjorie  Ben- 
ton  Cooke.    The  heroine  of  the  most  amusing 
novel  by  an  American  woman  in  many,  many  years 
couldn't  be  solely  the  product  of  an  imagination  how 
ever  fine.     She  couldn't  be  anything  but  an  imagina 
tive  introspection — by  which  we  mean  that  Miss  Cooke 
could  only  have  created  her  by  following  the  advice 
of  O.  Henry  and  others  before  him,  to  "look  into  your 
heart  and  write." 

No  matter  if  not  a  single  event  of  Bambi's  life  is 
autobiographical;  no  matter  if  her  Father  Professor 
with  his  mathematical  flowerbeds  never  lived ;  still  less 
if  Jarvis  Jocelyn  is  a  pure  fantasy.  The  point  is  that 
to  write  Bambi  Miss  Cooke  had  to  put  her  real  self 
in  the  midst  of  imagined  people  and  subject  her  real 
self  to  imagined  events.  This  is  completely  different 
from  the  usual  method  of  the  skilled  fictioneer.  He 
builds  his  hero  or  heroine  in  the  first  place,  but  having 
made  the  character  and  infused  into  it  the  breath  of 
life  the  character  does  the  rest.  The  writer  has 
little  governance  over  his  character's  actions;  these 
are  determined  by  the  character  himself  and  the  writer 
does  not  much  more  than  set  them  down.  Incredible  ? 

238 


MARJORIE  BENTON  COOKE          239 

Not  in  the  least.  Thackeray,  Scott — we  don't  know 
how  many  writers — testify  to  the  obstinacy  with  which 
their  people  insist  on  being  themselves.  Why,  an 
author  is  really  no  better  off  than  a  parent  who  brings 
a  child  into  the  world.  The  parent  may  transmit  to 
the  child  certain  traits  and  the  author  may  endow  his 
person  with  certain  qualities;  but  as  the  child  grows 
up  he  takes  his  own  course  rather  oftener  than  not, 
and  the  fictional  person  does  always !  Or  if  he  doesn't 
we  see  the  author  jerking  the  strings  and  despise  him 
for  it,  for  the  story  rings  false. 

But  the  book  Bambi  is  another  matter  and  precisely 
what  the  difference  consists  in  we  have  tried  to  show. 
Let  us  illustrate  it  anew.  Bambi  is  imagined  autobiog 
raphy.  Instead  of  creating  Bambi  and  letting  her  go 
her  way  Miss  Cooke  conducted  herself  through  the 
story.  Or,  if  you  want  to  put  it  in  another  way,  you 
may  say  that  she  created  Bambi  and  endowed  her  with 
certain  of  her  own  traits — gayety,  courage,  tenderness, 
wit,  a  love  of  drama — and  then  let  her  go  her  way. 
It  is  because  of  the  intimate  personal  quality  of  her 
heroine  that  Miss  Cooke  dedicated  her  book  "To  Bam 
bi,  with  thanks  to  her  for  being  Herself !  M.  B.  C." 

The  book  is  a  marvel — an  absolute  marvel.  It  sold 
heavily  and  promptly,  that  was  to  be  expected;  but 
the  marvel  consists  not  in  the  book's  popularity  but 
in  the  extraordinary  enthusiasm  it  stirred  in  its  read 
ers.  Since  no  one  who  has  read  it  seems  to  be  able 
to  avoid  the  use  of  superlatives  in  speaking  of  it — 
certainly  this  writer  isn't — it  might  be  best  to  put  aside 
any  attempt  at  characterization.  What  follows  shall  be 
: — analysis ! 


240  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

The  first  chapter  takes  the  reader  off  his  feet.  Bam- 
bi,  loving  the  dreamer  Jarvis  though  perhaps  not  very 
consciously  loving  him,  sends  for  a  minister  and  has 
herself  wedded  to  him,  despite  the  absent-minded  ob 
jections  of  her  father,  the  professor  of  mathematics. 
Jarvis  needs  looking  after.  This  perfectly  implausible 
proceeding  is  made  entirely  plausible — you  swallow  it 
whole  and  with  immense  relish — by  just  two  technical 
triumphs  on  Miss  Cooke's  part. 

1.  Everything  is  in  dialogue.     You  are  not  asked 
to  believe  that  the  Professor  is  one  kind  of  a  person, 
Bambi  another,  and  Jarvis  a  third,  and  all  three  emi 
nently  unlikely;  you  see  them  do  this  and  that  and 
you  hear  them  say  so  and  so.     Miss  Cooke  doesn't 
ask  you  to  believe  her,  she  asks  you  to  believe  your 
senses ! 

2.  The  dialogue  is  witty — the  wittiest — but  there  we 
go  off  on  superlatives  again.     The  dialogue  is  witty 
but  natural  in  the  completest  sense  of  the  word  and  the 
wit  springs  entirely  from  the  situation.     No  other 
wit  is  so  good,  as  any  dramatist  will  tell  you. 

These  two  things  are  the  key  to  the  whole  story 
and  the  key  to  the  utter  amazement  which  overcomes 
the  reader  when  he  applies  the  test  of  probability  to 
it — after  he  has  read  it  through.  Of  course  the  wonder 
of  that  first  chapter  could  not  be  entirely  sustained 
through  366  pages,  but  by  the  time  Miss  Cooke's  capi 
tal  starting  situation  has  lost  its  sharpest  edge  the  plot 
lias  reared  its  head !  Oh,  yes,  there's  a  plot ;  all  such 
a  story  as  Bambi  will  stand ;  a  plot  with  adequate  sus 
pense  and  a  steady  sweep  toward  a  denouement.  For 
in  a  tale  like  Bambi  you  must  not  have  too  much  plot ; 


MARJORIE  BENTON  COOKE          241 

the  chief  interest  is  ever  in  the  charming  and  lovable 
heroine. 

But  this  sketch  is  all  Bambi  and  none  of  it  Mar- 
jorie  Benton  Cooke,  of  whom  Bambi  is  only  a  pro 
jection,  in  dotted  lines,  as  a  draughtsman  would  say. 
Miss  Cooke  herself  is  the  daughter  of  Joseph  Henry 
Cooke  and  Jessie  (Benton)  Cooke.  She  was  born  in 
Richmond,  Indiana.  In  1899  sne  received  the  degree 
of  Bachelor  of  Philosophy  at  the  University  of  Chi 
cago.  In  the  same  year  she  began  writing  for  the 
magazines.  In  fact  her  first  printed  "novel"  exists 
as  a  yellowed  clipping  in  her  mother's  scrapbook.  Un 
derneath  it  is  penned  a  memorandum  :  "Published  the 
Sunday  after  Marjorie  received  her  degree."  It  was 
a  whimsical  episode,  the  story  of  a  lost  dime,  divided 
into  two  "chapters,"  and  appeared  in  the  Chicago  Rec 
ord-Herald.  It  contained  no  promise  of  Bambi. 

"Marjorie  and  her  doting  parents,"  as  Mrs.  Cooke 
once  remarked,  "thought  fame  and  fortune  were  hers 
to  command."  They  weren't.  She  traveled  a  long, 
hard  road,  writing  scraps  of  humor  and  satire  for 
newspapers  and  magazines,  concocting  little  stories  and 
selling  them.  She  was  fifteen  years  away  from  Bambi 
when  she  started.  But  she  had  the  gift  for  dramatic 
recitation  with  which  she  later  endowed  that  young 
woman.  In  1902  she  began  touring  the  United  States 
as  a  monologist.  Dozens  of  her  monologues  have 
been  published  but  will  not  be  found  listed  at  the 
end  of  this  chapter.  Miss  Cooke  would  be  the  last 
to  expect  them  to  be.  They  are  interesting  only  as 
the  preparation  necessary  to  write  Bambi,  particularly 
that  first  chapter.  Miss  Cooke  has  always  been  inter- 


242  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

ested  in  social  questions,  as  any  one  who  remembers 
Jarvis  Jocelyn's  experiences  in  New  York  will  under 
stand.  She  is  a  member  of  the  Little  Room  Club  in 
Chicago,  the  Heterodoxy  Club  and  the  Women's  Uni 
versity  Club  in  New  York. 

Her  books,  as  distinguished  from  her  printed  mono 
logue  booklets,  began  in  1903  with  Modern  Monologues, 
continued  in  1905  with  Dramatic  Episodes  and  Plays 
for  Children,  marked  time  in  1907  with  More  Modern 
Monologues  and  budded  with  a  novel,  her  first  novel, 
in  1910 — The  Girl  Who  Lived  in  the  Woods.  Dr. 
David  appeared  in  1911 ;  and  there  were  To  a  Mother, 
The  Twelfth  Christian,  a  dramatic  poem,  and  three 
one-act  plays  which  were  produced — all  before  Bambi. 

And  Miss  Cooke  will  play  a  Chopin  ballade  for  you 
and  talk  to  you  with  the  same  lightness,  deftness,  and 
fun  that  Bambi  displays.  She  has  forgotten  more  about 
the  art  of  talking  than  the  authors  of  all  the  conver 
sation  books  ever  knew.  She  is  not  obtrusive.  The 
manuscript  of  her  happiest  book  came  to  the  publishers 
quite  unheralded — just  a  manuscript  in  a  cardboard 
box  with  a  note  from  Miss  Cooke  saying  she  would 
like  to  have  Doubleday,  Page  &  Company  consider  it. 
Eugene  F.  Saxton  began  it  one  Sunday  afternoon 
about  5  o'clock,  intending  to  read  until  six,  then  go 
for  a  walk  and  have  dinner  uptown  somewhere.  He 
read  till  seven,  looked  at  the  clock,  and — went  on  read 
ing.  You  can  eat  any  day,  you  know.  .  .  . 

Later  a  telegram  went  forth :  "Bambi  is  ours.  Love 
at  first  sight." 

Miss  Cooke  sat  to  Mary  Green  Blumenschein  for 
the  illustrations  to  her  book ;  that's  why  they  are  what 


MARJORIE  BENTON  COOKE          243 

they  ought  to  be.  And  you  are  to  picture  her  just  as 
you  would  picture  Bambi,  say  as  sitting  on  a  low 
couch,  her  feet  tucked  in,  enthroned  among  billowy 
cushions,  that  is,  of  course,  if  you,  the  caller,  are  really 
acquainted.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  be  acquainted  with 
Bambi  when  you  call. 

What  else  ?  Bambi  was  followed  by  Cinderella  Jane 
and  that  interesting  tale  of  the  studio  cleaner  who  was 
married  to  the  painter  without  love  on  either  side — 
they  made  a  success  of  it  and  were  rewarded  by  be 
coming  lovers — that  tale  was  succeeded  by  The  Thresh 
old,  in  which  Miss  Cooke  chose  a  theme  which  would 
give  full  and  legitimate  play  to  her  interest  in  social 
problems.  A  rich  bachelor,  Gregory  Farwell,  employs 
Joan  Babcock  as  housekeeper  and  companion  for  him 
self  and  his  i /-year-old  nephew.  Far  well's  employees 
strike;  the  nephew,  inspired  by  Joan,  takes  the  work 
ers'  side.  The  result  is  a  thoroughly  dramatic  story 
in  which  the  problems  of  capital  and  labor,  social  rela 
tions  and  the  like  arise  fairly  and  squarely  out  of 
the  action  and  are  not  foisted  on  the  reader.  Miss 
Cooke  manages  exceedingly  difficult  material  well. 

If  you  go  to  interview  Miss  Cooke  about  her  own 
beliefs  on  serious  subjects  she  will  answer  you  out 
of  the  mouths  of  her  people  in  The  Threshold,  and 
chiefly  from  the  utterances  of  Joan  Babcock — which 
does  not  mean  that  she  makes  her  characters  say  what 
she  wants  to  say  to  the  world  at  large.  No !  It  means 
merely  that  she  herself  has  advanced  no  farther  along 
the  path  to  an  answer  to  all  these  questions  than  Joan 
Babcock  got.  When  Miss  Cooke  started  to  write  The 
Threshold  she  knew,  as  a  good  novelist  does,  exactly 


244  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

what  she  wanted  to  do.  She  wanted  to  find  out  how 
a  certain  type  of  ardent  young  American  woman  feels 
about  the  future  and  its  social  and  industrial  problems. 
You  ask :  why  didn't  she  go  out  and,  finding  a  woman 
of  that  type,  ask  her?  To  do  that  was  to  run  risks. 
You  might  not  find  the  young  woman.  She  might  re 
turn  evasive  answers  or  answers  either  intentionally 
or  unintentionally  misleading — so  few  of  us  really 
know  what  we  think  about  anything  in  the  future! 
There  was  just  one  safe  and  certain  way  to  set  about 
it,  and  that  was  to  create  a  young  woman  of  the 
sort  Miss  Cooke  had  in  mind,  put  her  in  the  midst 
of  events,  and  see  what  she  would  say  and  do,  what 
she  would  come  to  believe  about  the  things  ahead. 

Miss  Cooke's  The  Clutch  of  Circumstance,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  just  a  good  mystery  yarn  about  secret 
service  work  and  international  plots — but  based  on 
fact.  It  has  a  serious  defect  in  that  the  heroine,  some 
of  whose  qualities  are  plainly  exhibited  for  the  read 
er's  admiration,  is  guilty  of  atrocious  treachery,  be 
coming,  in  fact,  a  German  spy! 

Miss  Cooke  ?  She  is  going  ahead,  thank  you !  She 
is  going  ahead  in  the  wisest  way  in  the  world  for  a 
person  of  her  special  gifts.  What  was  said  in  The 
Threshold  about  Joan  is  the  best  thing  to  say  about  her 
author:  "The  world  is  thrust  forward  by  such  dy 
namic  personalities  as  yours,  even  by  your  mistakes. 
There  is  danger  in  action,  but  more  in  tranquil  inac 
tion,  in  feeble  acquiescence  in  the  face  of  injustice  and 
wrong." 


MARJORIE  BENTON  COOKE          245 

BOOKS  BY  MARJORIE  BENTON  COOKE 

Modern  Monologues,  1903. 

Dramatic  Episodes,  1905. 

Plays  for  Children,   1905. 

More  Modern  Monologues,   1907. 

The  Girl  Who  Lived  in  the  Woods,  1910. 

Dr.  David,  1911. 

Bambi,  1914. 

The  Dual  Alliance,  1915. 

Cinderella  Jane,   1917. 

The  Threshold,  1918. 

The  Clutch  of  Circumstance,  1918. 

The  Cricket,  1919. 

The  Girl  Who  Lived  in  the  Woods  and  Dr.  David 
are  published  by  A.  C.  McClurg  &  Company,  Chicago; 
Miss  Cookers  later  novels  are  published  by  Doubleday, 
Page  &  Company,  New  York;  but  The  Clutch  of  Cir 
cumstance  is  published  by  George  H.  Doran  Company, 
New  York. 


CHAPTER  XX 

GRACE  S.  RICHMOND 

WHY  do  some  of  Grace  S.  Richmond's  books 
sell  faster  than  the  books  of  any  other  Amer 
ican  yeoman  writer  ?  Because  they  do !  And 
their  popularity  has  no  relation  whatever  to  their  size. 
Some  of  the  littlest — On  Christmas  Day  in  the  Morn 
ing,  On  Christmas  Day  in  the  Evening,  and  The  En 
listing  Wife,  for  instances — sell  most  rapidly.     Not 
the  size ;  perhaps  it  has  something  to  do  with  the  sub 
stance  ! 

No  perhaps  about  it!  Mrs.  Richmond  has,  more 
perfectly  than  most  of  her  contemporaries,  the  gift 
for  disclosing  the  simplest  and  deepest  feelings  of  men 
and  women  everywhere  in  just  those  words  which 
are  at  the  back  of  our  heads  and  hardly  ever  on  our 
lips.  They  are  the  words  we  ache  to  utter  but  never 
quite  bring  ourselves  to  say.  She  says  them  for  us. 
She  makes  articulate  and  perfect  the  full  feeling  that 
is  in  us.  She  is  our  emotional  self — that  part  of  self 
which  is  a  common  possession — touched  with  pente- 
costal  fire.  When  we  read  her  we  have  the  delight 
of  self-expression  blended  with  a  feeling  of  grateful 
ness  to  her  for  affording  it  to  us. 

These  are  strong  words.  Gush,  some  will  call  them. 
Well,  among  the  people  of  repressed  instincts  there 

246 


GRACE  S.  RICHMOND  247 

is  one  instinct  seldom  repressed — the  instinct  to  sneer 
at  those  who  let  themselves  go.  This  is  an  inconsistency 
which  will  trouble  them  (we  point  it  out  that  they  may 
give  themselves  over  to  their  favorite  delight  of  self- 
torture)  but  which  bothers  the  rest  of  us  not  at  all. 
We  know — the  rest  of  us — full  well  that  the  emotion 
alism  of  which  Mrs.  Richmond  is  the  most  successful 
exponent  is  a  cleansing  and  refreshing  exercise.  We 
read  her  and  come  away  a  little  surer  of  ourselves 
and  of  the  world  about  us.  For  the  essence  of  that 
world  is  the  people  in  it  and  there  is  something  in 
most  people  that  does  not  change. 

Mrs.  Richmond  has  written  many  books.  The  only 
exact  fact  to  be  stated  is  that  in  1914 — and  several 
of  her  most  successful  books  have  appeared  since — she 
had  sold  400,000  copies.  The  total  must  be  well  on  to 
the  million  mark  by  now.  Then  there  are  the  cheaper 
editions  of  her  earlier  stories;  there  are  the  readers 
of  her  work  in  the  Ladies'  Home  Journal  and  other 
publications;  there  are  the  libraries  where  copies  of 
her  are  always  "out"  and  there  are  new  circles  of 
readers,  each  book  being  much  like  a  stone  breaking 
the  surface  of  a  pond  and  making  its  own  widening 
ripples; — no  matter.  Millions  read  Mrs.  Richmond. 
That  is  enough  to  know.  It  is  the  achievement  of  a 
quiet,  country-dwelling  woman  whose  publishers  have 
a  time  to  get  her  to  be  photographed! 

She  lives  in  Fredonia,  New  York,  and  the  sketch  of 
her  life  is  a  bare  outline.  She  was  born  in  Pawtucket, 
Rhode  Island,  the  daughter  of  the  Rev.  Charles  Ed 
wards  Smith,  D.D.,  and  Catherine  A.  (Kimball) 
Smith.  Her  father  was  a  Baptist  clergyman,  the  au- 


248  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

thor  of  The  Baptism  of  Fire  and  The  World  Lighted. 
Grace  was  an  only  child.  While  she  was  still  a  young 
girl  the  family  moved  to  Syracuse,  New  York.  There 
the  daughter  was  educated  in  the  Syracuse  High  School 
and  under  private  tutors,  following  college  courses  of 
study  under  their  direction.  She  gave  some  indica 
tions  of  the  writer's  gift  before  her  marriage,  in  1887, 
to  Dr.  Nelson  Guernsey  Richmond  of  Fredonia.  But 
the  wife  of  a  young  physician  with  a  growing  practice 
has  not  a  great  deal  of  leisure.  It  was  not  until  1891 
that  Mrs.  Richmond,  whose  first  work  was  short  stories 
for  magazines,  attracted  special  attention  by  a  story 
which  appeared  in  the  Thanksgiving  number  of  the 
Ladies'  Home  Journal. 

It  had  come  in  as  hundreds  of  other  things  come  in, 
had  been  read  by  the  principal  reader  and  had  by  him 
been  handed  directly  to  the  editor,  who  accepted  it  with 
out  delay.  The  story  was  called  The  Flowing  Shoe- 
String  and  described  the  reformation,  through  love,  of 
a  charmingly  untidy  little  literary  genius.  Mrs.  Rich 
mond  remembers  it  very  well!  She  found  herself  in 
rather  notable  company — Mrs.  A.  D.  T.  Whitney, 
Frances  E.  Willard,  Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox,  the  Rev.  T. 
De  Witt  Talmage  and  Russell  Sage  were  other  con 
tributors  to  that  Thanksgiving  number. 

Very,  very  modest,  and  very,  very  busy,  Mrs.  Rich 
mond  did  not  deluge  the  editor  with  other  work.  In 
fact,  seven  whole  years  passed  before  she  made  her 
second  appearance  in  the  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  in 
1898,  with  A  Silk-Lined  Girl.  It  was  the  Thanksgiv 
ing  number  again.  The  company  had  changed  but 
was  still  notable;  Henry  M.  Stanley,  Caroline  At- 


GRACE  S.  RICHMOND  249 

water  Mason  and  Mary  E.  Wilkins,  now  Mary  E. 
Wilkins  Freeman,  were  on  the  table  of  contents. 

This  second  bow  was  the  real  introduction  to  her 
audience.  Since  1898  Mrs.  Richmond  has  been  among 
the  magazine's  most  steady  and  popular  contributors. 
For  twelve  years,  from  1902  to  1913,  not  a  year  went 
by  when  she  was  not  represented  in  its  pages.  Her 
most  successful  work  has  had  its  first  appearance  there. 
May  and  June  of  1902  brought  to  the  Journal's  readers 
the  first  of  a  series  of  tales  about  Juliet  which  became, 
in  1905,  a  book,  The  Indifference  of  Juliet.  Juliet's 
indifference  was  toward  a  young  author  in  relation  to 
the  subject  of  marriage.  Naturally  interest  in  her  did 
not  stop  with  The  Indifference  of  Juliet  and  so,  in 
1907,  her  further  experiences  as  communicated  to  the 
Journal's  readers  were  published  between  covers  under 
the  title  With  Juliet  in  England. 

Mrs.  Richmond  is  a  doctor's  wife.  In  1910  she 
created  the  character  for  whom  she  is  most  widely 
known  and  thanked — Redfield  Pepper  Burns,  the  gen 
erous,  red-haired  young  doctor  of  uncertain  temper 
and  humane  impulses  of  whom  we  haven't  heard  the 
last  yet.  Red  Pepper  Burns  was  followed  by  Mrs. 
Red  Pepper  and  Red  Pepper's  Patients.  But  hold  on — • 
not  so  fast.  In  1906,  between  the  two  Juliet  books, 
Mrs.  Richmond  had  given  us  the  story  of  The  Second 
Violin.  In  1908  came  Around  the  Corner  in  Gay 
Street,  in  1909  A  Court  of  Inquiry;  there  were  also 
the  two  Christmas  booklets — On  Christmas  Day  in 
the  Morning  (1908)  and  On  Christmas  Day  in  the 
Evening  (1910).  Between  Red  Pepper  Burns  and 
Mrs.  Red  Pepper  appeared  Strawberry  Acres  and  a 


250  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

year  after  Mrs.  Red  Pepper  was  published  The  Twen 
ty-fourth  of  June. 

But  this  is  becoming  a  mere  catalogue,  and  the  place 
for  a  list  of  Mrs.  Richmond's  books  is  at  the  end  of 
this  chapter.  What  we  want  to  do  here  is  to  con 
sider  her  writing,  or  a  few  fragments  of  it  as  repre 
sentative  as  may  be,  and  try  to  see  what  she  does  and 
how  she  does  it. 

Let  it  be  said  at  the  outset  that  she  makes  slips 
which  would  be  inexcusable  if  we  did  not  all  make  the 
same  slips.  In  the  second  chapter  of  Red  Pepper's  Pa 
tients  Dr.  Burns  has  sheltered  a  Hungarian  violinist 
who  is  now  playing  for  the  physician  and  his  wife : 
"Warmed  and  fed,  his  Latin  nature  leaping  up  from 
its  deep  depression  to  the  exaltation  of  the  hour,  the 
appeal  he  made  to  them  was  intensely  pathetic."  The 
Hungarians  are  not  a  Latin  race,  but  we  know  what 
she  means,  so  why  be  bothered?  "His  attitude,  as  he 
stood  before  his  hosts,  had  the  unconscious  grace  of 
the  foreigner."  Of  any  foreigner — they  are  all  grace 
ful!  Hang  it!  We  always  think  of  them  as  un 
consciously  graceful.  Why  quibble? 

Mrs.  Richmond  can  be  humorous  in  the  most  nat 
ural  way.  From  The  Twenty-fourth  of  June: 

"  'Rufus,'  said  his  wife  solemnly,  following  him  into 
the  white-tiled  bathroom,  T  want  you  should  look  at 
those  bath-towels.  I  never  in  my  life  set  eyes  on  any 
thing  like  them.  They  must  have  cost — I  don't  know 
what  they  cost — I  didn't  know  there  were  such  bath- 
towels  made !' 

"  'I  don't  want  to  wrap  myself  in  a  blanket/  as 
serted  her  husband.  'I  want  to  know  I've  got  a  towel 


GRACE  S.  RICHMOND  251 

in  my  hand,  that  I  can  whisk  round  me  and  slap  myself 
with.  Look  here,  let's  get  to  bed.  .  .  . 

"  'Ruth/  said  he,  with  sudden  solemnity,  'I  forgot 
to  undress  in  my  dressing-room.  Had  I  better  put 
my  clothes  on  and  go  take  'em  off  again  in  there  ?' ' 

It  is  funny  because  it  is  so  exactly  what  we  do  say 
in  such  situations.  It  is  naturalism  of  a  very  high 
order  and  the  more  humorous  for  being  entirely  un 
forced. 

In  the  creation  of  character  Mrs.  Richmond  is  at 
her  best  simply  because  she  differentiates  her  people 
ever  so  slightly  from  what,  lacking  a  better  word,  we 
generally  call  types.  Her  main  triumph  is  evenly 
shared  in  this  field  and  that  other,  of  which  we  spoke 
at  the  outset.  Red  Pepper  Burns  was  a  very  great  suc 
cess  as  novels  go  and  Redfield  Pepper  Burns  is  a  very 
distinct  success  as  the  persons  of  fiction  go;  but  the 
Christmas  stories  that  Mrs.  Richmond  has  written  and 
such  intimate  little  heart  messages  as  The  Enlisting 
Wife  and  The  Whistling  Mother  are  just  as  success 
ful.  Take  the  opening  of  The  Enlisting  Wife: 

"Judith  Taine,  who  was  married  to  Lieutenant  Kirke 
Wendell,  Junior,  just  before  he  sailed  for  France,  is 
keeping  in  a  small  blue  book  a  little  record  which  he 
may  see  when  he  returns.  It  begins  with  the  last 
paragraph  of  a  letter  from  her  young  husband. 

"  'If  you  hadn't  enlisted  with  me,  my  Judith,  I 
shouldn't  be  half  the  man  I'm  beginning  to  hope  I  am, 
over  here  in  France.  If  manhood  means  standing  up 
straight  and  strong,  facing  the  future  without  the  old 
boyish  love  of  ease  and  snug  corners — then — well — 
time  will  prove  me,  anyhow.  Darling,  can  you  guess 


252  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

how  you  are  with  me,  every  waking  moment — and 
some  of  the  sleeping  ones  too,  when  I'm  lucky?  My 
wife — even  though  I  could  be  with  her  only  those  few 
hours  after  Father  married  us — how  absolutely  she 
is  that!  My  enlisting  wife,  my  fighting  comrade! — 
O  Judith!' 

"I  don't  cry  often — not  I,  Judith  Taine  Wendell.  I 
can't  afford  to  cry,  there's  too  much  to  be  done.  But 
that  last  paragraph  did  bring  the  tears — happy  ones — 
and  I  kissed  the  dear  words  again  and  again  before  I 
tucked  the  letter  away  in  the  warm  place  where  each 
one  lives,  day  and  night,  till  the  next  one  comes.  O 
Kirke!  Even  you  don't  know  yet  how  'absolutely'  I 
am  your  wife!" 

Such  writing  is  insusceptible  of  analysis;  it  admits 
only  of  characterization.  We  all  know  how  hostile 
some  of  the  characterization  is  likely  to  be,  but  the  fact 
remains  that  Mrs.  Richmond  has  contrived  perfectly 
to  set  down  not  the  things  the  Judith  Wendells  and 
Kirke  Wendells  actually  say  and  write  but  the  un 
spoken  thought  that  gives  body  and  coloring  to  their 
actual  words.  It  is  what  we  wish  we  could  say  and 
write  that  Mrs.  Richmond  gives  us.  She  transliterates 
the  true  feeling.  Remember,  it  is  not  our  feeling  but 
the  depth  of  it  that  we  are  habitually  ashamed  to 
show.  It  is  only  necessary  to  make  that  reflection  to 
understand  Mrs.  Richmond's  success.  She  is  as  popu 
lar  with  our  emotional  selves  as  would  be  a  person  who 
should  write  letters  for  the  unfortunate  inhabitants  of 
an  illiterate  community.  Most  of  us  are  emotional 
illiterates  and  are  likely  to  remain  so.  We  need  Mrs. 
Richmond  and  more  like  her. 


GRACE  S.  RICHMOND  253 

BOOKS  BY  GRACE  S.  RICHMOND 

The  Indifference  of  Juliet,  1905. 

With  Juliet  in  England,  1907. 

Round  the  Corner  in  Gay  Street,  1908. 

Red  Pepper  Burns,  1910. 

Strawberry  Acres,  1911. 

Mrs.  Red  Pepper,  1913. 

The  Second  Violin,  1906. 

A  Court  of  Inquiry,  1909. 

On  Christmas  Day  in  the  Morning,  1908. 

On  Christmas  Day  in  the  Evening,  1910. 

The  Twenty-fourth  of  June,  1914. 

Under  the  Country  Sky. 

Under  the  Christmas  Stars. 

The  Brown  Study. 

Red  Pepper's  Patients,  1917. 

The  Whistling  Mother,  1917. 

The  Enlisting  Wife,  1918. 

Brotherly  House. 

The  first  six  books  are  published  by  A.  L.  Burt  Com 
pany,  New  York;  the  rest  by  Doubleday,  Page  & 
Company,  New  York. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

WILLA  SIBERT  GATHER 

SOME  novelists  are  at  their  best   in  their  first 
novels;  others  do  their  best  work  after  a  long 
apprenticeship  in  the  public  eye;  a  few  show 
steady  growth  and  a  very  few  show  steady  and  rapid 
growth.     Of  these  last  is  Willa  Sibert  Gather. 

She  has  written  four  novels.  You  pick  up  Alex 
ander's  Bridge  and  read  with  discriminating  pleasure. 
It  is  a  fine  piece  of  work.  It  is — excellent  is  the  word, 
yes,  excellent  and  artistically  fine  all  through.  The 
story  is  sound  and  gives  a  sort  of  aesthetic  delight  if 
you  are  susceptible  to  purely  aesthetic  delights  in 
literature.  But  there  is  nothing  about  this  very  short 
tale  of  a  great  man  who  fissured  and  fell  to  make  a 
deep  impression.  However,  some  time  later  you  come 
upon  another  book  by  the  same  author  and  start  to 
read. 

Then  what  a  shock;  then  what  reverberations  in 
your  heart  as  well  as  your  head  (for  even  an  empty 
head  will  reverberate  and  perhaps  rather  better  than  a 
filled  one).  0  Pioneers!  is  in  its  way  an  epic  of  the 
Western  plains ;  it  is  wholly  epic  in  its  emotional  force 
and  sweeping  panorama,  though  not  in  rich  detail. 
The  first  chapter  engages  you  and  the  second  chapter 
enthralls  you.  Thereafter  you  are  a  thorough  be- 

254 


WILLA  SIBERT  GATHER  255 

liever  in  the  literary  gift  of  Willa  Sibert  Gather.  But 
though  intensely  satisfied  with  O  Pioneers!  you  never 
for  a  moment  expect  more  of  her — perhaps  because 
it  does  not  seem  as  if  to  expect  more  would  be  in  any 
way  reasonable. 

A  year  or  so  passes.  You  get  hold  of  a  new  novel 
by  her,  as  much  thicker  than  O  Pioneers!  as  O 
Pioneers!  was  thicker  than  Alexander's  Bridge.  It 
is  called  The  Song  of  the  Lark.  You  eye  it  specula- 
tively.  You  start  to  read  it  confidently  but  not  breath 
lessly.  And  ere  you  are  halfway  through  you  know 
that  she  has  excelled  herself  again. 

The  Song  of  the  Lark  is  a  much  bigger  thing  than 
her  second  novel  in  every  respect  except  one — it  has 
not  the  same  peculiar  quality  of  seeming  to  sum  up  in 
a  single  life  the  whole  history  of  a  part  of  America 
in  the  period  of  that  life.  But  wait — think  a  moment. 
Does  not  this  chronicle  of  Thea  Kronberg,  the  singer, 
sum  up  in  a  single  life  the  whole  emotional  history  of 
thousands  of  lives?  Why,  yes;  you  had  not  thought 
of  it  but  that  is  so!  Thea  Kronberg  the  girl,  strug 
gling  ahead  toward  some  goal  as  yet  unsuspected ;  Thea 
Kronberg  the  woman,  fighting  with  all  her  force  to 
gain  a  goal  perceived  but  hopelessly  distant;  Thea 
Kronberg  the  great  singer,  fighting  and  triumphing  for 
the  sake  of  the  fight — what  is  this  but  the  record  of 
every  superb  artist  who  has  ever  lived? 

From  the  wonder  of  those  second  and  third  books, 
each  so  much  bigger  than  the  one  before,  we  turn 
somewhat  bewilderedly  to  the  probable  wonder  of  the 
woman  who  could — and  did — write  them.  But  here 
no  wonder  lies.  At  least,  you  may  read  the  external 


256  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

record  of  Willa  Sibert  Gather's  life  and  find  nothing 
that  fully,  or  even  adequately,  explains  her  growth 
as  a  novelist.  If  there  were  only  a  hint!  But  read 
through  this  bit  of  autobiography  and  see  if  you  can 
find  any. 

"Willa  Sibert  Gather  was  born  near  Winchester, 
Virginia,  the  daughter  of  Charles  Fectigue  Gather  and 
Virginia  Sibert  Boak.  Though  the  Siberts  were  orig 
inally  Alsatians,  and  the  Gathers  came  from  County 
Tyrone,  Ireland,  both  families  had  lived  in  Virginia 
for  several  generations.  When  Willa  Gather  was  9 
years  old  her  father  left  Virginia  and  settled  on  a 
ranch  in  Nebraska,  in  a  very  thinly  populated  part  of 
the  State  where  the  acreage  of  cultivated  land  was 
negligible  beside  the  tremendous  stretch  of  raw 
prairie.  There  were  very  few  American  families  in 
that  district ;  all  the  near  neighbors  were  Scandinavians, 
and  ten  or  twelve  miles  away  there  was  an  entire  town 
ship  settled  by  Bohemians. 

"For  a  child  accustomed  to  the  quiet  and  the  es 
tablished  order  behind  the  Blue  Ridge,  this  change  was 
very  stimulating.  There  was  no  school  near  at  hand, 
and  Miss  Gather  lived  out  of  doors,  winter  and  sum 
mer.  She  had  a  pony  and  rode  about  the  Norwegian 
and  Bohemian  settlements,  talking  to  the  old  men  and 
women  and  trying  to  understand  them.  The  first  two 
years  on  the  ranch  were  probably  more  important  to 
her  as  a  writer  than  any  that  came  afterward. 

"After  some  preparation  in  the  high  school  at  Red 
Cloud,  Nebraska,  Miss  Gather  entered  the  State  Uni 
versity  of  Nebraska,  graduated  at  19,  and  immedi 
ately  went  to  Pittsburgh  and  got  a  position  on  the  Pitts- 


WILLA  SIBERT  GATHER  257 

burgh  Leader.  She  was  telegraph  editor  and  dramatic 
critic  on  this  paper  for  several  years  and  then  gave  it 
up  to  take  the  place  of  the  head  of  the  English  depart 
ment  in  the  Allegheny  High  School. 

"While  she  was  teaching  in  the  Allegheny  High 
School  she  published  her  first  book  of  verse,  April 
Twilights,  and  her  first  book  of  short  stories,  The  Troll 
Garden.  The  latter  book  attracted  a  good  deal  of 
attention,  and  six  months  after  it  was  published,  in 
the  winter  of  1906,  Miss  Gather  went  to  New  York 
to  accept  a  position  on  the  staff  of  McClure's  Maga 
zine.  From  1908  until  the  autumn  of  1912  Miss 
Gather  was  managing  editor  of  McClure's  Magazine, 
and  during  these  four  years  did  no  writing  at  all.  In 
the  fall  of  1912  she  took  a  house  in  Cherry  Valley, 
New  York,  and  wrote  a  short  novel,  Alexander's 
Bridge,  and  a  novelette,  The  Bohemian  Girl,  both  of 
which  appeared  serially  in  McClure's  Magazine.  In 
the  spring  of  1913  Miss  Gather  went  for  a  long  stay 
in  Arizona  and  New  Mexico,  penetrating  to  some  of 
the  many  hardly-accessible  Cliff  Dweller  remains  and 
the  remote  mesa  cities  of  the  Pueblo  Indians. 

"Miss  Gather  has  an  apartment  at  5  Bank  street  in 
New  York,  where  she  lives  in  winter.  In  the  summer 
she  goes  abroad  or  returns  to  the  West.  This  sum 
mer  [1915]  she  refused  a  tempting  offer  to  write  a 
series  of  articles  on  the  war  situation  in  Europe  to 
explore  the  twenty-odd  miles  of  Cliff  Dweller  remains 
that  are  hidden  away  in  the  southwest  corner  of  Colo 
rado,  near  Mancos  and  Durango." 

Very  nice,  but  it  tells  you  nothing  that  you  need  to 
know  if  you  are  to  frame  a  hypothesis  to  account  for 


258  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

Miss  Gather's  astonishingly  rapid  progress  as  a  novel 
ist.  The  material  for  O  Pioneers!  and  The  Song  of 
the  Lark,  or  a  good  deal  of  it,  was  patently  gathered 
in  her  impressionable  girlhood.  The  fine  chapters  of 
The  Song  of  the  Lark  which  relate  Thea  Kronberg's 
stay  in  the  Cliff  Dweller  region  with  Fred  Ottenburg 
are  outwardly  explained  by  Miss  Gather's  personal  in 
terest  in  these  ruins.  What  is  not  made  in  the  least 
clear  is  the  secret  of  her  own  success.  Let  us  look 
into  some  of  the  things  she  has  said  and  see  if  we  can 
find  a  clew  to  it  there. 

"I  have  never  found  any  intellectual  excitement 
more  intense  than  I  used  to  feel  when  I  spent  a  morn 
ing  with  one  of  these  pioneer  women  at  her  baking 
or  buttermaking.  I  used  to  ride  home  in  the  most  un 
reasonable  state  of  excitement;  I  always  felt  as  if  they 
told  me  so  much  more  than  they  said — as  if  I  had 
actually  got  inside  another  person's  skin.  If  one  be 
gins  that  early  it  is  the  story  of  the  man-eating  tiger 
over  again — no  other  adventure  ever  carries  one 
quite  so  far." 

Do  you  detect  something?  Do  you  perceive  (i) 
a  set  of  impressions  acquired  at  the  most  plastic  age 
and  with  a  sharpness  of  configuration  never  to  be  lost 
and  (2)  an  extraordinary  blend  of  intellectual  and 
emotional  feeling — of  heart  and  mind — which  carried 
the  girl  beyond  the  spoken  word;  and  also  (3)  an  im 
aginative  faculty  which  could  go  on  living  a  thing 
after  merely  hearing  about  it  and  living  it  through  to 
the  unnarrated,  possibly  unexperienced,  conclusion? 
Do  you  get  a  hint  of  any  or  all  of  these  things?  Of 
course  you  do ! 


WILLA  SIBERT  GATHER  259 

Going  further  we  learn  that  when  Miss  Gather  be 
gan  to  write  she  tried  to  put  the  Swedish  and  Bohe 
mian  settlers  she  had  known  in  her  girlhood  into  her 
short  stories.  "The  results,"  we  are  informed,  "never 
satisfied  her."  She  discussed  this  dissatisfaction 
afterward. 

"It  is  always  hard  to  write  about  the  things  that  are 
near  your  heart,"  she  argued.  "From  a  kind  of  in 
stinct  of  self-protection  you  distort  and  disguise  them. 
Those  stories  were  so  poor  that  they  discouraged  me. 
I  decided  that  I  wouldn't  write  any  more  about  the 
country  and  the  people  for  whom  I  had  a  personal 
feeling. 

"Then  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  meet  Sarah  Orne 
Jewett,  who  had  read  all  of  my  early  stories  and  had 
very  clear  and  definite  opinions  about  them  and  about 
where  my  work  fell  short.  She  said:  'Write  it  as  it 
is,  don't  try  to  make  it  like  this  or  that.  You  can't 
do  it  in  anybody  else's  way;  you  will  have  to  make  a 
way  of  your  own.  If  the  way  happens  to  be  new, 
don't  let  that  frighten  you.  Don't  try  to  write  the 
kind  of  short  story  that  this  or  that  magazine  wants; 
write  the  truth  and  let  them  take  it  or  leave  it.' 

"It  is  that  kind  of  honesty,  that  earnest  endeavor  to 
tell  truly  the  thing  that  haunts  the  mind,  that  I'  love 
in  Miss  Jewett's  own  work.  I  dedicated  O  Pioneers! 
to  her  because  I  had  talked  over  some  of  the  characters 
with  her,  and  in  this  book  I  tried  to  tell  the  story  of 
the  people  as  truthfully  and  simply  as  if  I  were  telling 
it  to  her  by  word  of  mouth." 

Ah!  This  is  downright  enlightening.  Miss  Gather 
does  not  specifically  say  that  she  had  to  depart  from 


260  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

actual  persons  when  she  came  to  do  her  good  work, 
but  that  is  the  inference  we  draw.  She  does  not  en 
tirely  lay  bare  the  real  reason;  and  for  the  benefit  of 
those  who  may  be  puzzled  over  it  let  us  supplement 
what  she  says. 

There  is  a  pitch  of  emotion  at  which  the  artist  can 
not  work;  he  can  only  see,  feel,  learn,  store  up;  the 
rendering  of  what  he  has  felt  and  seen  c/omes  after 
ward.  Wordsworth  said  that  poetry  was  emotion  rec 
ollected  in  tranquillity.  He  might  just  as  well  have 
extended  the  definition  to  include  all  forms  of  art. 
When  you  or  I  come  to  sit  down  and  put  on  paper 
actual  persons  whom  we  knew  and  loved  (or  hated) 
we  cannot  do  it  if  the  feeling  is  still  very  strong,  any 
more  than  we  can  write  about  them  while  loving  or 
hating  them.  Our  hands  shake  and  our  emotional  and 
mental  disturbance  is  so  great  that  we  cannot  collect 
our  thoughts,  or,  if  we  contrive  to  collect  them  par 
tially,  we  cannot  put  them  down  on  paper.  Tears  blur 
the  vision.  We  have  to  wait,  then,  until  a  little  time 
has  passed  and  we  are  calmer;  until  we  can  recall  in 
a  warm,  remembering  glow,  the  feeling  of  that  time, 
recall  it  just  sufficiently  for  our  artist's  purpose.  We 
sail  through  it  then,  but  are  not  awash. 

Very  often  this  intensity  of  feeling  about  actual 
persons  so  persists  as  to  make  it  impracticable  to  write 
honestly  about  them  at  all.  And  so  the  artist  is  thrown 
back  on  his  imagination  for  the  bodying  forth  of  other 
persons  and  characters,  typical  enough,  real  enough, 
true  enough,  but  not  the  flesh  of  his  flesh  and  blood 
of  his  blood.  About  these  creations  of  his  own  he  can 
write  and  write  well.  And  this,  we  are  surmising,  is 


WILLA  SIBERT  GATHER  261 

the  experience  that  Miss  Gather  underwent  as  so  many 
others  have  undergone  it  before  her. 

In  her  case  the  difference  was  that  she  had  an  im 
agination  to  come  to  her  rescue.  So  few  have!  Or 
rather,  so  few  have  an  adequate  imaginative  faculty, 
one  that  will  bear  them  forward,  one  that  will  sustain 
their  created  people,  that  will  meet  every  demand  made 
upon  its  resources  early  and  late,  that  will  not  flag, 
that  will  not  weary,  that  will  not  die  in  the  middle  of 
the  creative  task. 

We  have  built  up  our  hypothesis.  Now  let  us  see 
if  we  can  support  it. 

"According  to  Miss  Gather,  all  the  material  for  her 
writing  had  been  collected  before  she  was  20  years  old. 
'I  have  had  nothing  really  new  since  that  time,'  she 
said.  'Every  story  I  have  written  since  then  has  been  a 
recollection  of  some  childhood  experience,  of  some 
thing  that  touched  me  while  a  youngster.  You  must 
know  a  subject  as  a  child,  before  you  ever  had  any 
idea  of  writing,  to  instill  into  it,  in  a  story,  the  true 
feeling.  After  you  grow  up  impressions  don't  come 
so  easily.  And  it  is  for  the  purpose  of  recalling  the 
old  feelings  I  had  in  my  youth  that  I  come  West  every 
summer.  The  West  has  for  me  that  something  which 
excites  me,  and  gives  me  what  I  want  and  need  to 
write  a  story.' ' 

Surely  this  is  all  the  confirmation  we  need.  She 
goes  West  to  get  the  warm,  remembering  glow  that  is 
necessary  for  her  artist's  purpose. 

Let  us  consider  her  four  books. 

'Alexander's  Bridge  might  have  been  written  by 
Edith  Wharton.  It  has  only  one  fault,  a  certain 


262  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

cloudiness  characteristic  of  finely-written  stories  in 
which  the  mentality  of  one  or  two  of  the  characters 
is  of  the  essence  of  the  whole  thing.  It  needs  for  its 
full  appreciation  Miss  Gather's  own  explication  of  its 
purpose.  She  says : 

"The  bridge  builder  with  whom  this  story  is  con 
cerned  began  life  a  pagan,  a  crude  force,  with  little 
respect  for  anything  but  youth  and  work  and  power. 
He  married  a  woman  of  much  more  discriminating 
taste  and  much  more  clearly  defined  standards.  He 
admires  and  believes  in  the  social  order  of  which  she 
is  really  a  part,  though  he  has  been  only  a  participant. 
Just  so  long  as  his  ever-kindling  energy  exhibits  itself 
only  in  his  work,  everything  goes  well;  but  he  runs 
the  risk  of  encountering  new  emotional  as  well  as  new 
intellectual  stimuli  [a  pity  that  in  the  effort  to  explain 
it  should  be  necessary  to  resort  to  this  jargon!]. 

"The  same  qualities  which  made  for  his  success  in 
volve  him  in  a  personal  relationship  [with  an  actress, 
a  youthful  love]  which  poisons  his  peace  of  mind  and 
dissipates  his  working  power.  His  behavior  changes, 
but  his  ideals  do  not. 

"He  was  the  kind  of  a  man  who  had  to  think  well 
of  himself.  His  relation  to  his  wife  was  not  a  usual 
one ;  when  he  hurt  her,  he  hurt  his  self-respect  and  lost 
his  sense  of  power.  His  bridge  fell  because  he  him 
self  had  been  torn  in  two  ways  and  had  lost  his  single 
ness  of  purpose  which  makes  a  man  effective.  He  had 
failed  to  give  it  the  last  ounce  of  himself,  the  ounce 
that  puts  through  every  great  undertaking." 

There!  That  last  paragraph's  better!  It  makes 
quite  clear  the  inner  action  of  the  novel.  And  the  only 


WILLA  SIBERT  GATHER  263 

fault  with  the  novel,  we  repeat,  is  that  this  inner  ac 
tion  should  be  clear  right  there!  It  should  not  be 
necessary  for  any  one  of  ordinary  intelligence  to  have 
to  read  Miss  Gather's  explanation  of  what  really  takes 
place  inside  Bartley  Alexander. 

O  Pioneers!  is  utterly  different.  Some  one  has  said 
that  reading  a  novel  by  Miss  Gather  gives  you  no  as 
surance  at  all  as  to  what  her  next  novel  will  be  like. 
That  seems  to  be  true.  It  is  the  stamp,  we  may  add, 
of  a  very  original  gift — talent — genius;  the  degree  of 
her  endowment  is  not  precisely  determinable  even  yet. 
In  O  Pioneers!  it  is  a  woman  who  dominates  the 
whole  story,  tall,  strong,  sensible,  not  so  much  kind- 
hearted  as  human-hearted,  which  means  a  great  com 
prehension  with  sympathy  to  serve  it.  We  see  the  girl 
Alexandra  and  her  two  brothers  left  by  a  dying  father 
with  the  charge  to  hold  to  the  land,  the  untamed  soil 
of  the  prairie.  The  father  has  made  his  daughter 
the  head  of  the  family  because  she  has  intelligence  and 
her  brothers  have  not.  They  work  well,  but  they  do 
not  use  their  heads  in  their  work.  The  girl  justifies 
her  father's  faith  in  her  and  by  her  intelligent  antic 
ipation  makes  her  brothers  prosperous  and  herself 
rich.  There  is  a  third  brother,  distinctly  younger  than 
the  others,  whom  she  has  under  her  especial  care  and 
upon  whom  she  lavishes  the  maternal  affection  that  is 
in  her.  The  terrible  tragedy  which  involves  him  would 
have  blasted  irretrievably  a  woman  less  strong,  less 
intelligent  than  Alexandra.  She  survives  it  as  she 
would  survive  anything  that  life  could  do  to  her. 

The  quality  of  the  story  is  dual.  There  is  the 
fidelity  to  character  which  marks  the  true  novelist,  the 


264  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

resolute  putting  through  of  what  these  people,  in  con 
tact  with  each  other,  will  certainly  bring  about.  That 
calls  for  courage!  How  severe  the  temptation  to 
shirk  an  inevitable  but  bitter  event!  It  is  so  easy  to 
persuade  yourself  that  this  and  that  will  not  mean 
disaster,  that  such  and  such  chemicals  when  joined 
need  not  explode,  that  oil  and  water  will  mix  this  once, 
that  two  and  two  may  for  the  moment  make  five !  Why 
must  there  be  a  blighting  catastrophe  ?  Why  cannot  a 
happy  ending  be  a  truthful  ending?  The  answer  is 
that  sometimes  it  can,  but  when  it  can't  you  mustn't 
make  it  so.  Miss  Gather's  O  Pioneers!  doesn't  try 
to. 

The  second  aspect  of  this  novel  we  have  already 
named.  It  is  cyclic,  that  is,  it  sums  up  an  era.  Such 
a  quality  always  gives  a  book  a  historical  value ;  where 
it  is  wedded  to  high  fictional  art,  as  here,  the  satisfac 
tion  of  the  reader  is  complete. 

The  Song  of  the  Lark  gains  over  O  Pioneers!  in 
the  first  place  by  its  sheer  bulk.  O  Pioneers!  was  a 
series  of  scenes  in  a  single  but  changing  setting;  to 
cover  so  much  ground,  in  point  of  time,  the  author  had 
to  strip  her  action  of  all  that  was  not  indispensable. 
But  as  The  Song  of  the  Lark  is  entirely  centered  about 
the  development  of  a  single  person  there  is  a  chance 
to  enrich  the  narrative  with  no  end  of  detail;  more, 
it  is  necessary  to  do  so.  For  here  we  are  trying  to 
come  at  the  innermost  secret  of  Thea  Kronberg,  we 
are  trying  to  find  out  what — what — it  was  in  her  that 
made  her  great.  To  get  at  that  we  must  have  ex 
haustively  every  item  which  can  be  made  to  contribute 
the  least  mite  of  information.  We  must  have  every- 


WILLA  SIBERT  GATHER  265 

thing  about  her  from  her  girlhood  to  her  success  on 
the  New  York  stage,  we  must  have  all  the  persons  who 
came  in  contact  with  her  and  who  had  their  effect  on 
her,  or  upon  whom  she  had  her  effect,  for  it  was  gen 
erally  that  way  about !  We  must  have  her  as  she  ap 
peared  to  each  and  every  one  of  the  few  really  privi 
leged  to  know  her.  What  they  saw  and  said,  the  con 
clusions  they  drew,  are  the  material  from  which  we 
have  to  dig  out  the  secret.  And  Miss  Gather  gives  us 
all  we  need.  She  is  replete  with  the  facts  and  she  puts 
them  in  their  entirety  before  us.  The  result  is  a  biog 
raphy,  no  less;  but  a  biography  unencumbered  with 
letters  and  irrelevant  conversations  and  unimportant 
views  and  the  unendurable  conscientiousness  of  the 
faithfully  recording  friend. 

My  Antonia  is  a  book  to  be  put  alongside  0  Pio 
neers!  It  is  less  epical  but  of  more  historical  value 
for  its  minute  and  colorful  depiction  of  life  on  the 
Nebraska  prairies  and  in  the  Nebraska  towns  about 
1885.  The  book  is  really  a  chronicle  of  people  and 
their  surroundings,  a  mosaic  of  character  sketches  and 
scenes  and  short  stories  brought  within  a  single  ken. 
The  material  ranges  from  tragedy,  horror  and  re 
pellent  occurrences  to  pathos,  humor  and  farce.  It 
is  perfectly  handled,  however;  the  reader  is  never  of 
fended  and  is  variously  touched  and  amused — and 
always  the  book  is  engrossing.  Such  a  book  is  worth 
a  dozen  formal  historical  records.  And  the  figure 
of  Antonia  Cuzak  is  a  biographical  triumph.  Rem 
iniscence  here  surpasses  fiction. 

There  is  no  more  to  be  said  and  it  may  easily  be  that 
too  much  has  been  said  already.  If  this  chapter  has 


'266  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

been  too  venturesome  in  its  inferences  and  too  de 
clamatory  in  its  exposition,  forgive  that,  O  reader! 
If  you  have  read  Miss  Gather's  notable  novels  you  may 
disagree  but  you  will  understand  and  condone ;  if  you 
have  not  read  them  you  will  be  more  indulgent  toward 
us  after  doing  so;  and  actually  if  what  we  have  said 
shall  lead  you  to  read  her  books  the  whole  of  our 
striving  will  have  been  fulfilled.  She  is  a  novelist 
whose  work  already  adds  measurably  to  American 
literature;  whether  all  of  us  put  the  same  estimate 
upon  her  accomplishment  does  not  matter  at  all;  it 
matters  supremely  that  as  many  of  us  as  possible 
should  be  acquainted  with  it. 

BOOKS   BY  WlLLA    SlBERT   GATHER 

April  Twilights,  1903.     R.  G.  Badger,  Boston. 
The  Troll  Garden,  1905.     Doubleday,  Page  &  Co., 
New  York. 

Alexander's  Bridge,  1912. 
O  Pioneers!  1913. 
The  Song  of  the  Lark,  1915. 
My  Antonia,  1918. 

Miss  Gather's  books  are  published  by  Houghton 
MifHin  Company,  Boston. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

CLARA   LOUISE  BURNHAM 

TO  write  twenty-six  books  is  something,  is  it 
not?  To  have  written  twenty-six  books  which 
have  sold  half  a  million  copies  (the  publisher's 
offhand  guess)  is  something  else  again  and  more. 
Clara  Louise  Burnham  has  done  that;  and  the  cold 
arithmetical  statement  does  not  begin  to  convey  the 
real  nature  of  her  achievement.  You  must  read  her 
to  know  how  capable  a  novelist  she  is,  how  expert,  how 
gifted  with  humor,  insight,  fertility  in  those  slight 
inventions  which  make  up  the  reality  of  a  fictionist's 
whole.  Mrs.  Burnham's  writings  are  associated  in  the 
minds  of  many  thousands  who  have  not  read  her 
tales,  or  have  read  only  a  few  of  them,  with  the  doc 
trines  of  Christian  Science.  And  it  is  true  that  she 
is  the  author  of  several  novels  in  which  the  principles 
of  this  faith  are  of  the  essence  of  the  stories.  Equally 
true  is  it  that  she  has  said  of  her  book,  Jewel : 

"I  like  Jewel  best.  I  think  she  is  my  high  water 
mark.  It  is  a  Christian  Science  book  and  without  the 
Christian  Science  terminology  that  is  used  in  the  story 
it,  well,  it  would  be  a  kind  of  second  Little  Lord 
Fauntleroy,  and  besides,  it  wouldn't  be  Jewel." 

Which  may  be  so  but  which  does  not  hold  true  of 
The  Right  Princess.  There  the  identification  of 

267 


268  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

Frances  Rogers's  beliefs  with  the  faith  of  which  Mrs. 
Eddy  was  the  founder  is  not  indispensable  to  the 
narrative.  Miss  Rogers  need  not  have  been  a  Scien 
tist.  We  should  still  have  an  unusual  and  effec 
tively  told  story,  a  novel  quite  as  entertaining  and 
worth  the  reader's  while  as  The  Opened  Shutters, 
from  which  the  terminology  of  the  Scientists  is  en 
tirely  absent. 

The  point  we  would  make,  then,  the  point  that 
ought,  in  sheer  honesty,  to  be  made  at  the  very  outset 
of  any  consideration  of  Mrs.  Burnham's  work,  is  her 
genuine  and  incontestable  achievement  as  a  straight 
way,  out-and-out,  talented  story-teller,  a  pure  and 
simple  fictioneer,  an  experienced  and  popular  Ameri 
can  novelist.  That  some  of  her  novels  have  probably 
done  more  to  put  Christian  Science  precepts  before  the 
world  in  what  the  Scientist  believes  to  be  the  true 
light  than  anything  ever  written  other  than  the 
church's  texts — that  this  is  so  may  be  granted.  But 
it  is  not  a  fact  we  have  to  concern  ourselves  with  here. 
We  concede  it  and  pass  on.  We  pass  on  in  either  di 
rection,  going  back  to  the  fourteen  books  which  pre 
ceded  The  Right  Princess  or  forward  to  the  eight  nov 
els  which  have  appeared  since  The  Leaven  of  Love. 
They  are  the  bulk  of  Mrs.  Burnham's  work.  And  yet 
— it  is  to  be  feared  we  shall  have  to  bestow  most  of  our 
attention  upon  the  six  books  between!  They  repre 
sent  Mrs.  Burnham's  widest  popularity  and  what  is 
possibly  her  best  work  judged  strictly  in  literary  as 
pects.  But  enough  of  this  for  the  present;  it  is  time 
enough  to  cross  bridges  when  we  come  to  them.  Let 
us  first  get  a  glimpse  of  Mrs.  Burnham  herself. 


CLARA  LOUISE  BURNHAM  269 

A  tall  woman,  spare  in  build,  with  light  hair,  blue 
eyes  and  a  merry  manner,  a  conversationalist  with  an 
ecdotes,  a  manner  of  great  simplicity,  serenity,  calm 
pleasantness.  She  was  the  eldest  daughter  of  George 
F.  Root,  as  popular  a  songwriter  as  this  country  has 
produced.  Born  in  Newton,  Massachusetts,  she  has 
lived  most  of  her  life  in  Chicago.  She  summers  in 
Maine.  Her  education  was  in  the  public  and  in  pri 
vate  schools  in  Chicago,  and  at  the  New  Church 
School,  Waltham,  Massachusetts.  Politically  she  is, 
or  was,  a  Progressive ;  and  at  this  point  we  cannot  do 
better  than  to  quote  her  own  words  in  the  Chicago 
Record-Herald  of  November  24,  1912: 

"People  who  see  the  large,  sunshiny  hotel  room  in 
which  I  work,  whose  bay  windows  command  a  wide 
expanse  of  lake,  say  that  they  no  longer  wonder  at 
the  good  cheer  of  my  stories.  If  I  ever  had  the  blues 
I  should  believe  in  the  water  cure.  I  have  always 
believed  in  the  ounce  of  prevention.  Indeed,  I  try  it 
all  summer  up  in  Maine. 

"Bailey  Island,  my  summer  home,  is  only  a  sma?-. 
green  hill  in  the  superb  sweep  of  the  Atlantic.  My 
cottage  stands  eighty  feet  above  the  sea,  and  there  is 
nothing  but  water  between  me  and  Europe.  It  is 
great  fun  for  a  woman  who  usually  lives  at  a  hotel 
to  keep  house  three  months  of  the  year. 

"But  Bailey  Island  is  not  an  inspiring  place.  I  never 
work  in  summer.  My  father  always  told  me  to  let 
the  water  in  the  reservoir  fill  up  then.  Besides,  a 
brick  wall  is  all  the  view  I  want  when  I  am  at  work. 
Even  this  dear  Lake  Michigan  is  almost  too  distract 
ing  at  times. 


"Lake  Michigan  explains  why  I  have  not  followed 
the  tide  of  successful  writers  to  New  York.  I  love 
Chicago,  with  all  its  soot  and  wind.  I  am  naturally 
optimistic,  and  therefore  expect  that  within  the  next 
decade  the  Illinois  Central  will  be  electrified.  Then 
won't  this  spot  be  a  winter  paradise? 

"Nevertheless,  it  is  tempting  to  use  my  island  as 
a  background  for  my  stories.  In  The  Inner  Flame  I 
have  gone  back  to  it  again.  Besides,  the  Villa  Chan- 
tecler  is  a  real  place — a  henhouse  cleared  and  reno 
vated  by  an  enthusiastic  young  artist  and  given  that 
clever  name.  The  Chantecler  studio  was  too  pictur 
esque  an  incident  not  to  become  material. 

"However,  very  little  of  my  material  is  taken  from 
real  life.  It  is  playing  with  fire  to  draw  recognizable 
portraits  of  people ;  but  I  fancy  nearly  all  authors  are 
quite  aware  that  they  are  making  composite  pictures 
of  friends  or  acquaintances.  For  instance,  the  man 
who  inspired  the  character  of  Philip  Sidney,  the  hero 
of  The  Inner  Flame,  is  a  brother-in-law  of  John  Mc- 
Cutcheon;  while  Edgar  Fabian's  personality  and 
mannerisms  are  copied  faithfully  from  another  one  of 
my  friends  whose  character  is  as  different  from  Ed 
gar's  as  can  be  imagined.  It  is  very  seldom  that  any 
individual  appeals  to  me  as  material,  but  when  he  or 
she  does,  I  generally  fall.  Inasmuch  as  in  all  my 
books  there  is  not  one  villain,  I  should  not  think  they 
would  mind. 

"I  have  been  asked  whether  I  have  a  'method'  in 
writing.  I  have — necessarily.  Genius  has  inspira 
tions.  It  writes  in  the  night,  or  walking  in  the  field, 
and  burns  cords  of  cigarettes.  Mere  talent  must  be 


CLARA  LOUISE  BURNHAM  271 

persistent  and  industrious,  and  can  often  forego  cigar 
ettes. 

"When  I  was  a  very  young  girl  I  read  something 
Miss  Mulock  said  apropos  of  writing  which  made  a 
deep  impression.  It  was  this:  'An  author  should  go 
to  his  desk  as  regularly  as  a  carpenter  to  his  bench, 
and  with  as  little  thought  of  inspiration/  I  point  to 
my  twenty  novels  as  a  proof  that  I  have  heeded  that 
direction;  for  if  any  one  doubts  the  manual  labor  of 
book  writing  let  him  pick  up  any  story  and  copy  a 
chapter  from  it  in  long  hand.  I  have  averaged  one 
novel  a  year,  yet  my  maximum  period  of  daily  work 
is  three  morning  hours. 

"If  a  young  person  aspiring  to  print  should  ask  me 
whether  there  is  a  definite  way  to  begin,  I  should 
tell  him  to  start  by  catching  a  big  brother.  Prefer 
ably  his  own,  for  any  one  else's  might  be  a  hindrance. 
Mine  is  Frederick  W.  Root,  ex-president  of  the  Liter 
ary  Club,  Cliff  Dweller,  Little  Roomer,  and  in  many 
other  respects  an  orthodox  Chicagoan.  He  has  been 
my  mascot  ever  since  the  day  when  he  started  on  the 
labor — and  hard  labor  it  was — of  drawing  a  young 
sister  away  from  the  music  which  was  her  chief  in 
terest  and  starting  her  at  story  writing.  You  know 
I  am  one  of  the  Roots.  My  father,  George  F.  Root, 
ivas  known  chiefly  by  his  war  songs,  Tramp,  Tramp, 
Tramp  and  The  Battle  Cry  of  Freedom  and  so  on, 
but  every  home  in  the  land  knows  his  simple,  melo 
dious  songs,  and  I  should  like  to  feel  that  the  vitality 
in  my  unpretentious  stories  is  akin  to  the  spontaneous 
harmony  that  flowed  for  fifty  happy  years  from  his 
clear  mind. 


272  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

"I  suppose  the  reason  I  did  not  wish  to  write  was 
that  music  satisfied  me.  My  brother  persisted  against 
my  indifference  for  a  year.  At  last  we  were  both  ex 
asperated.  He  shut  me  into  a  room  with  him  one 
day,  and  opening  a  very  business-like  looking  knife, 
declared  with  a  fearful  scowl  that  I  should  not  leave 
that  room  alive  unless  I  promised  to  try  faithfully  to 
write  a  story.  I  laughed  a  little  and  wept  a  little,  and 
at  last  promised  to  show  him  that  I  couldn't  do  it. 

"Some  one  asked  him  once  in  my  presence  why  he 
was  so  certain  that  I  could  write.  He  replied:  'Oh, 
she  has  a  picturesque  way  of  telling  things  and  isn't 
too  much  hampered  by  the  truth.'  I  forgive  him  even 
such  aspersions.  He  is  an  example  of  what  'a  heart 
at  leisure  from  itself  can  do  for  another.  I  owe 
him  everything ;  above  all  the  blessed  assurance  which 
sometimes  reaches  me  that  my  stories  help  others. 

"It  is  wonderful  that  I  met  no  obstacles  in  starting. 
With  no  conscious  preparation  I  was  like  a  ship  ready 
to  be  launched.  Fred  pushed  me  off  into  deep  water. 

"I  enjoy  my  work,  but  not  quite  in  the  carefree 
way  I  used  to  enjoy  it.  With  each  new  book  now  I  am 
conscious  of  some  anxiety  not  to  disappoint  my  large 
parish ;  not  to  go  backward.  Both  in  books  and  plays 
I  believe  the  destructive  is  doomed.  In  this  world 
there  exists  only  one  rose  without  a  thorn.  There  are 
many  larger,  more  alluring,  more  fragrant,  but  there 
is  only  one  thornless  rose;  it  is  work  that  you  love." 

Mrs.  Burnham  rather  minimizes  the  difficulties  of 
getting  started.  Her  first  stories  were  unfavorably 
passed  upon  but  the  verdicts  did  not  deter  her.  A 
poem  sent  to  Wide  Awake  was  her  first  accepted  work. 


CLARA  LOUISE  BURNHAM  273 

No  Gentlemen  was  her  first  novel.  It  should  be  stated 
that  her  mother  also  was  musically  gifted.  Though 
born  in  Newton,  Massachusetts,  the  girl  lived  for  some 
years  in  North  Reading,  Massachusetts.  She  was  nine 
when  the  family  went  to  Chicago  to  live.  She  was 
married  young  and  it  was  after  her  marriage  that  her 
brother  induced  her  to  write.  She  is  a  member  of  the 
Little  Room  Club  of  Chicago  and  lives  there  at  The 
Elms  Hotel.  Her  first  play,  or  rather  the  first  play 
made  from  one  of  her  books,  was  The  Right  Princess, 
and  when,  after  the  usual  hitches,  it  was  staged 
smoothly  at  the  Alcazar  Theater  in  San  Francisco  late 
in  1912,  Mrs.  Burnham  confessed  to  the  dramatist's 
deepest  thrill.  "I  will  not  act  the  doting  parent  ex 
cept  to  say  that  after  so  many  years  of  seeing  one's 
characters  in  black  and  white  on  the  printed  page  you 
can't  imagine  how  fascinating  it  is  to  watch  them 
move  about  in  the  flesh,  your  own  creations,  speaking 
your  own  lines;  and  then  my  first — my  very  first — • 
villain  lives  in  that  little  play." 

To  get  to  Bailey  Island,  Mrs.  Burnham's  summer 
home  in  Maine,  you  go  first  to  Portland,  where  the 
author  is  as  "widely  and  favorably  known"  as  if  she 
had  lived  there  all  her  life.  It  is,  in  fact,  almost  a 
quarter  of  a  century  since  she  began  spending  her 
summers  in  Maine.  She  has  failed  to  show  up  but 
rarely  since  1894,  although  she  did  spend  two  summers 
abroad  and  one  visiting  Yellowstone  Park.  "I  only 
spared  a  summer  to  go  to  Yellowstone  because  it  was 
open  only  in  summer,"1  she  explained  afterward.  Her 
Bailey  Island  house,  a  roomy  shingled  structure,  stands 
on  a  steep,  shelving  headland,  not  rocky  but  covered 


274  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

with  grass  and  with  a  pebbled  beach  at  its  foot.  It 
is  called  The  Mooring.  Beside  it  stands  her  brother's 
house,  of  the  same  character  but  a  little  larger.  The 
view  is  over  the  Atlantic  and  Casco  Bay  and  you 
may  see  the  White  Mountains  clearly.  The  story  of 
how  Mrs.  Burnham  came  to  live  there  is  related,  with 
changes  of  names,  in  her  novel  Dr.  Latimer.  The  old 
tide  mill,  which  figures  so  importantly  in  The  Opened 
Shutters,  was  a  real  mill  which,  two  years  after  the 
novel's  appearance  in  1906,  sank  into  the  sea.  Do 
you  remember  this  passage  in  the  last  chapter  of  The 
Opened  Shutters'? 

"She  paused,  her  lips  apart,  her  eyes  wide,  for  all 
at  once  she  caught  sight  of  the  Tide  Mill.  Every  one 
of  its  shutters  had  turned  back.  The  sunlight  was 
flooding  in.  She  grew  pale,  sank  down  upon  a  rock 
near  by,  and  gazed."  And  then  a  few  pages  later  John 
Dunham's  words  to  Sylvia  Lacey : 

"  'You  said  Love  would  open  the  shutters,  and  it 
has.' '  The  incident  is  charged  with  a  special  signifi 
cance  in  the  story.  It  appears  that  when  the  real  mill 
disappeared  a  coincidence  was  noted,  the  sort  of  thing 
that  many  persons  prefer  to  think  no  coincidence  at 
all.  We  quote  from  the  Portland  Evening  Express  of 
July  31,  1909: 

"It  seems  that  one  day  last  summer  Captain  Morrill 
of  the  Harpswell  Steamboat  Company,  who  is  not  too 
fond  of  story  reading,  picked  up  The  Opened  Shutters 
to  read.  His  wife  in  telling  about  it  to  Mrs.  Burnham 
said  that  he  read  the  story  far  into  the  night,  not 
being  willing  to  put  it  down  till  he  had  read  the  last 
word.  The  next  day  when  he  was  sailing  down  the 


CLARA  LOUISE  BURNHAM  275 

bay,  his  attention  was  suddenly  directed  to  the  old 
Tide  Mill.  He  looked  at  it  long  and  steadily.  Could 
it  be?  Were  his  eyes  deceiving  him?  Had  he  read 
so  late  and  thought  so  deeply  on  the  story  that  things 
did  not  look  quite  natural  to  him?  He  looked  at  the 
old  mill  again.  Yes,  it  was  sinking  into  the  sea — 
and  the  shutters  were  wide  open!  The  sun,  too,  was 
shining  through.  For  years  these  old  shutters  had  not 
let  in  a  rift  of  light;  but  now  they  were  aflood  with 
it." 

Those  who  do  not  hug  the  supernatural  are  at  liberty 
to  suppose  that  the  strain  of  settling  and  sinking 
unbarred  and  flung  open  the  shutters.  Of  Captain 
Morrill  it  may  be  noted  that  his  presence  of  mind  and 
bravery  several  years  earlier  had  saved  the  lives  of 
Mrs.  Burnham  and  other  passengers  in  a  collision  be 
tween  the  steamboat  Sebascodegan  and  a  revenue 
cutter.  But  for  him  The  Opened  Shutters  would  never 
have  been  written. 

The  beginning  of  this  capital  story  was  not  with 
the  Tide  Mill,  however,  but  with  the  name  Thinkright 
Johnson.  Like  certain  persons  whose  appearance  be 
fore  Mrs.  Burnham's  mind's  eye  has  compelled  her  to 
write  about  them,  this  New  Englandish  appellation 
gave  birth  to  a  book.  Thinkright  Johnson — Think- 
right  Johnson;  the  name  haunted  Mrs.  Burnham  for 
days  and  weeks,  "till  I  knew  that  the  only  way  I  could 
have  any  peace  was  to  write  something  about  him." 

It  was  the  same  way  with  Jewel.  She  kept  coming 
before  her  author.  "She  is  the  exact  type  of  one  of 
my  little  nieces,  in  character,  looks,  and  even  to  the 


276  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

things  that  she  says.  In  some  way  I  felt  compelled 
to  write  about  her." 

On  the  other  hand  the  story  of  The  Right  Princess 
came  to  Mrs.  Burnham  one  evening  when  she  was  all 
dressed  for  the  theater.  "As  I  stood  in  my  room,  all 
ready  to  go,  it  began  to  come  to  me.  I  drew  off  one 
of  my  gloves  and  sat  down  to  my  desk  just  to  jot  down 
a  few  of  the  ideas;  but  the  whole  thing  grew  so 
rapidly  in  my  mind  that  I  did  not  realize  anything  in 
the  world  about  me  again,  till  I  found  myself  remov 
ing  one  of  my  shoes  many  hours  later. 

"The  book  was  practically  conceived  and  written 
in  a  single  night.  But,  ordinarily,  I  just  live  with  my 
characters  after  they  have  come  to  me.  Of  course  it 
is  usually  the  leading  character  of  a  story  that  occurs 
to  me  first,  and  then  I  let  him  or  her  gather  about 
them  the  characters  which  they  would  naturally  know 
or  come  in  contact  with.  Then  I  just  let  them  say 
the  things  which  they  would  naturally  say  to  each 
other.  Of  course  I  accept  and  reject  what  my  charac 
ters  shall  say  in  print,  coordinating  and  assorting  it 
into  the  plot ;  but  they  develop  the  plot. 

"My  hours  are  from  9  to  12  in  the  morning.  What 
ever  I  write  comes  to  me  perfectly  easily  and  natu 
rally,  and  I  rarely  ever  make  any  change  in  my  first 
copy.  My  mother  used  to  say  that  I  wrote  just  as 
other  people  hemmed  handkerchiefs.  Writing  has 
never  meant  any  struggle  whatever  to  me. 

"Stories  are  to  entertain,  and  they  cannot  do  this 
if  they  are  unhappy,  and  then,  all  my  early  stories  I 
used  to  read  to  my  father,  and  he  particularly  dis- 


CLARA  LOUISE  BURNHAM  277 

liked  anything  that  was  unhappy  in  them  and  urged 
me  to  take  it  out." 

Among  Mrs.  Burnham's  close  friends  are  the 
brothers  George  Barr  McCutcheon,  the  novelist,  and 
John  McCutcheon,  the  cartoonist;  and  George  Ade. 
Charles  Klein,  the  playwright,  was  a  personal  friend 
also. 

It  is  improper  to  use  the  word  trilogy  in  speaking 
of  Mrs.  Burnham's  Christian  Science  novels,  since  a 
trilogy,  rightly  speaking,  is  a  group  of  three  novels  in 
which  one  or  more  characters  persist,  or  which  have 
a  common  setting.  If  we  can  speak  of  a  trilogy  based 
on  an  idea  or  set  of  ideas  then  Mrs.  Burnham's 
Christian  Science  trilogy  consists  of  The  Right  Prin 
cess  (1902),  Jewel  (1903)  and  The  Leaven  of  Love 
(1908).  The  Opened  Shutters  (1906)  is  free  from 
the  special  terminology  of  the  Scientists,  though  satu 
rated  with  their  principles  and  beliefs  in  the  charac 
ter  of  Thinkright  Johnson  and  later  of  Sylvia  Lacey. 

Heart's  Haven  (1918)  is  Mrs.  Burnham's  account 
of  May  Ca'line,  a  village  beauty  who,  as  between  two 
lovers,  kept  faith  with  the  one  to  whom  she  had  be 
trothed  herself.  Her  son  marries  a  girl  of  no  breed 
ing  and  is  saved  from  disaster  by  his  mother's  rejected 
lover,  whose  story  he  does  not  know.  May  Ca'line 
herself  is  later  the  means  of  restoring  her  son's  for 
tunes.  There  is  a  double  love  story  very  pleasantly 
told  and  very  happily  worked  out. 

Though  with  The  Leaven  of  Love  Mrs.  Burnham 
has  given  over  writing  Christian  Science  novels  the 
underlying  ideas  of  her  work,  which  were  there  before 
she  wrote  The  Right  Princess,  which  were  there  when 


278  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

she  wrote  Dr.  Latimer,  remain  unaltered  and  always 
expressed.  These  ideas  are  those  of  peaceful  and 
happy  existences,  of  the  validity  of  mental  experiences, 
of  the  influence  of  intellectual  environment.  Thus 
as  lately  as  1916,  in  Instead  of  the  Thorn,  she  gives 
us  the  story  of  a  Chicago  girl  brought  up  in  luxury, 
whose  father  is  ruined  in  circumstances  that  seem  to 
her  to  involve  his  business  associate.  The  fact  that 
this  young  man  is  in  love  with  the  girl  sets  up  the 
complication,  or  struggle,  necessary  to  make  a  novel. 
The  girl  is  finally  persuaded  to  go  to  New  England 
for  rest,  and  Mrs.  Burnham  directs  the  reader's  at 
tention  less  to  the  solution  of  certain  external  prob 
lems  than  to  the  way  in  which  simple,  quiet  village 
life  restores  the  heroine's  mental  poise  and  happiness. 
As  for  the  proof  that  Mrs.  Burnham's  faith  was  an 
tecedent  to  the  first  of  her  Christian  Science  novels 
what  clearer  evidence  need  be  asked  than  Helen  Ivi- 
son's  characterization  of  Dr.  Latimer  in  the  story,  Dr. 
Latimert 

"The  secret  of  his  influence  over  people  is  only  that 
absolute  trust  in  God  which  he  has  learned  somehow 
in  life's  school.  He  puts  self  out  of  the  way  more 
than  any  one  we  ever  knew,  and  so  a  power  shines 
through  him  which  is  not  of  this  world,  and  people, 
when  they  come  near  him,  feel  all  that  is  morally  best 
in  them  being  drawn  forward,  and  are  conscious  of 
crowding  out  of  sight  all  that  they  would  be  ashamed 
to  have  come  to  his  notice." 

Nothing  better  illustrates  the  quality  of  Mrs.  Burn- 
ham's  humor — a  humor  that  makes  her  stories  palat 
able  reading  even  where  the  reader  disagrees  vio- 


CLARA  LOUISE  BURNHAM  279 

lently  with  the  ideas  set  forth — than  the  chapters  in 
Jewel  where  Jewel  is  suffering  from  what  those  about 
her  agree  to  be  fever  and  sore  throat.  Dr.  Ballard 
has  prepared  medicine  in  a  glass  of  water.  Jewel  is 
to  take  a  couple  of  spoonfuls  of  the  "water"  to  satisfy 
Mrs.  Forbes.  Instead  she  drinks  heavily  from  an  un- 
medicated  pitcherful.  By  evening  she  is  much  better. 
Then  does  the  doctor,  who  thinks  he  has  tricked  Jewel 
by  persuading  her  to  trick  the  housekeeper,  learn  that 
he  has  been  fooled  instead. 

"'Didn't  you  drink  any  of  the  water?'  asked  Dr. 
Ballard  at  last. 

"  'Yes,  out  of  the  pitcher.' 

"  'Why  not  out  of  the  glass?' 

"  'It  didn't  look  enough.    I  was  so  thirsty.' 

"Mr.  Evringham  finally  found  voice. 

"  'Jewel,  why  didn't  you  obey  the  doctor?'     .     .     . 

"Jewel  thought  a  minute. 

"  'He  said  it  wasn't  medicine,  so  what  was  the  use  ?' 
she  asked. 

"Mr.  Evringham,  seeming  to  find  an  answer  to  this 
difficult,  bit  the  end  of  his  mustache." 

Equally  amusing,  equally  good  as  humor,  is  Jewel's 
behavior  with  respect  to  the  overshoes  which  she  is 
ordered  to  wear.  At  first  she  wears  them  regardless. 
Then  she  is  told  to  wear  them  only  when  it  rains.  A 
rainy  day  dawns.  Grandfather  Evringham  comes 
downstairs  in  bad  humor.  "  'Beastly  weather.'  " 
Jewel  inquires: 

"  'But  the  flowers  and  trees  want  a  drink,  don't 
they?' 

"  '  'M.    I  suppose  so.' 


280  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

"  'And  the  brook  will  be  prettier  than  ever.' 

"  '  'M.  See  that  you  keep  out  of  it.' 

"  'Yes,  I  will,  grandpa ;  and  I  thought  the  first  thing 
this  morning,  I'll  wear  my  rubbers  all  day.  I  was  so 
afraid  I  might  forget  I  put  them  right  on  to  make 
sure.'  " 

Recovering  shortly  Mr.  Evringham  observes: 

"  'The  house  doesn't  leak  anywhere.  I  think  it  will 
be  safe  for  you  to  take  them  off  until  after  break 
fast'  " 

Now  this  is  excellent  humorous  writing  and  Mrs. 
Burnham's  novels  are  filled  with  it,  even  her  Christian 
Science  novels,  perhaps  those  particularly;  it  is  so 
good  simply  because  she  has  most  thoroughly  assimi 
lated  her  material  before  starting  to  write.  How  many 
writers  more  famous  than  she,  more  gifted,  possibly, 
from  a  critical  standpoint,  would  have  made  a  sorry 
failure  of  such  books  as  Jewel  and  The  Right  Princess 
we  don't  care  to  think.  But  you  may  see  the  disaster 
any  day  in  the  case  of  writers  like  Winston  Churchill, 
engrossed  by  certain  political  and  ethical  ideals,  and 
Ernest  Poole,  whose  fine  novel  The  Harbor  failed  of 
the  highest  rank  simply  because  he  had  not  assimilated 
the  sociological  ideas  which  he  wished  to  present 
through  his  characters.  It  is  continually  happening, 
this  effort  of  the  good  artist  to  handle  material  he 
has  not  mastered;  and  as  surely  as  he  essays  the 
task  he  leaves  his  place  as,  a  novelist  to  mount  the 
pulpit  of  the  preacher,  the  rostrum  of  the  reformer, 
the  soapbox  of  the  agitator — and  a  fine  story  is 
spoiled  beyond  all  salvaging. 

But   when   Mrs.     Burnham    writes    of    Christian 


CLARA  LOUISE  BURNHAM  281 

Science  beliefs,  ideas  and  mental  attitudes  she  is  not 
writing  primarily  to  lay  those  things  before  the  reader- 
She  is  writing  to  tell  a  story.  These  are  the  elements 
of  her  story.  From  them  she  weaves  her  web  of  fancy 
but  they  are  the  colors  and  not  the  pattern. 

In  the  depiction  of  character,  notably  the  strongly 
accentuated  characters  of  New  England,  Mrs.  Burn- 
ham  is  unfailingly  and  admirably  successful.  The 
Opened  Shutters  lends  itself  from  the  start  to  the 
happy  illustration  of  this  faculty.  Who  more  ac 
curately  observed  and  justly  reported  than  Miss 
Lacey,  Judge  Trent  and  John  Dunham?  Miss  Lacey 
meets  the  judge's  housekeeper,  old  Hannah,  and  ex 
claims  : 

"  'I  just  met  Judge  Trent,  Hannah.  Dear  me,  can't 
you  brush  that  hat  of  his  a  little?  It  looks  for  all 
the  world  like  a  black  cat  that  has  just  caught  sight 
of  a  mastiff.'  " 

Martha  Lacey's  attitude  toward  Judge  Trent  is 
summed  up  in  the  refrain  continually  sounding  at  the 
back  of  her  head: 

"  'If  I'd  married  him,  he'  " — would  have  done  so 
and  so  or  wouldn't  have  done  something  else.  No 
two  ways  about  that !  The  consciousness  of  this  stern 
and  immutable  fact  is  what  makes  Judge  Trent's  life 
one  long  sensation  of  relief  at  having  been  refused. 

"The  judge  softly  closed  the  door  behind  her. 
'There,  but  for  the  grace  of  God,'  he  murmured  de 
voutly,  'goes  Mrs.  Calvin  Trent.'  Then  he  returned 
to  his  desk,  put  on  his  hat,  and  sat  down  at  his  work." 

Plots?  There  are  hundreds  of  writers  who  can 
build  twenty-story  plots  with  express  elevator  service 


282  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

and  private  subway  stations.  There  aren't  so  many 
who  can  see  people  clearly  and  see  them  whole  and 
set  them  down  brightly  on  paper.  Mrs.  Burnham's 
novels  will  be  widely  read  and  enjoyed  for  so  long  as 
she  writes  them  and  afterward  for  many  a  day. 

BOOKS  RY  CLARA  LOUISE  BURNHAM 

The  Quest  Flower. 

Flutterfty. 

The  Golden  Dog. 

No  Gentlemen,  1882. 

A  Sane  Lunatic,  1883. 

Dearly  Bought,  1884. 

Next  Door,  1885. 

Young  Maids  and  Old,  1886. 

The  Mistress  of  Beech  Knoll,  1887. 

Miss  Bagg's  Secretary,  1892. 

Dr.  Latimer,  1893. 

Miss  Archer  Archer,  1894. 

Sweet  Clover,  a  Romance  of  the  White  City,  1894. 

The  Wise  Woman,  1895. 

A  Great  Love,  1898. 

A  West  Point  Wooing  and  Other  Stories,  1899. 

Miss  Pritchard's  Wedding  Trip,  1901. 

The  Right  Princess,  1902. 

Jewel:  a  Chapter  in  Her  Life,  1903. 

Jewel's  Story  Book,  1904. 

The  Opened  Shutters,  1906. 

The  Leaven  of  Love,  1908. 

Clever  Betsy,  1910. 

The  Inner  Flame,  1912. 


CLARA  LOUISE  BURNHAM  283 

The  Right  Track,  1914. 
Instead  of  the  Thorn,  1916. 
Heart's  Haven,  1918. 

All  of  Mrs.  Burnham's  books  are  published  by 
Houghton  Mifflin  Company f  Boston. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

/ 

DEMETRA   VAKA 

IT  is  the  commendable  but  not  always  fruitful 
practice  of  the  publishing  house  of  Houghton 
Mifflin  Company,  Boston,  to  send  to  all  its  au 
thors  a  folder  calling  for  such  particulars  of  their  lives 
as  may  properly  be  matter  of  interest  to  the  general 
public.  In  1914  or  thereabouts  one  of  these  fact 
requisitions  went  to  the  author  Demetra  Vaka,  other 
wise  Mrs.  Kenneth  Brown.  In  due  time  it  came  back 
to  Boston  bearing  the  following  data,  inscribed  in  a 
feminine  hand  that  no  school-master  could  conscien 
tiously  praise : 

Name  in  full:  Demetra  Kenneth  Brown. 

Chief  occupation  or  profession:  Wife. 

Residence  &  address:  Green  Lane  Cottage,  Mount 
Kisco,  New  York. 

Place  of  birth:  Island  of  Bouyouk  Ada,  Sea  of 
Marmora. 

Date  of  birth:  1877. 

Education,  when  and  where  received,  in  detail: 
First  privately.  Then  at  Athens  Private  School. 
Paris.  Various  convents.  Courses  at  Sorbonne. 
One  year  University  of  Athens.  One  year  University 
of  New  York.  Various  schools  in  Constantinople,  too 
many  to  remember,  using  schools  as  frivolous  women 

284 


DEMETRA  VAKA  285 

use  garments — throwing  away  when  not  becoming. 

Date  of  marriage:  1904,  April  21. 

Military,  political  and  civic  record:  No  records 
whatever  except  of  bad  temper. 

Director  or  trustee  of  the  following  educational  or 
public  institutions:  Never  offered  any,  except  the  self- 
assumed  one  of  bringing  up  my  husband. 

Politics:    For  the  best  man  who  is  on  the  ticket. 

Religious  denomination:  Orthodox  Greek. 

Professional  associations,  learned  and  technical 
societies,  decorations,  etc.:  None. 

Member  of  the  following  philanthropic  or  chari 
table  institutions  (if  holder  of  any  office,  so  state)  : 
Have  not  any  money  to  spare. 

Social  clubs:  Have  not  sufficient  money  except  for 
golf  and  tennis  clubs  of  wherever  I  happen  to  be, 
which  if  all  counted  will  require  more  room  than  you 
allow  me,  as  we  roam  all  over  the  earth. 

Business  or  professional  record:  On  the  editorial 
staff  of  Greek  newspaper  Atlantis  for  about  six 
months  in  New  York  City.  French  teacher  at  the 
Comstock  School,  N.  Y.  C.,  for  several  years  up  to 
1903.  Writer  since  1904. 

Office  or  position  occupied  by  you:   Wife. 

Title  of  (first)  book:    First  Secretary. 

Year  first  published:  1907. 

Publisher:  W.  B.  Dodge  &  Co.  (extinct). 

This  amusing  cross-examination  needs  to  be  sup 
plemented  at  several  points  and  the  reader  will  be 
somewhat  more  enlightened  by  what  follows. 

Demetra  Vaka  is  a  Greek  whose  ancestors  lived  in 


286  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

Constantinople  for  more  than  700  years.  Many  of 
them  were  Turkish  government  officials.  Mrs. 
Brown's  early  life  brought  her  constantly  and  inti 
mately  in  touch,  therefore,  with  the  Turks.  She 
played  with  Turkish  children  and  was  able  to  view 
the  Turkish  people  without  any  religious  prejudice 
whatever.  But  she  was  born,  she  says,  with  an  Ameri 
can  soul.  Certain  conditions  revolted  her,  and  not 
least  among  them  the  system  of  prearranged  marri 
ages.  It  was  to  escape  such  a  marriage  that  she  ran 
away  from  home,  coming  to  the  United  States  with 
the  family  of  a  relative.  Once  here,  however,  she 
was  soon  left  to  shift  for  herself. 

Alone,  penniless,  and  not  yet  eighteen,  she  found 
it  neither  an  easy  nor  romantic  affair  to  get  work. 
When  finally  she  got  on  the  staff  of  Atlantis  she  found 
she  liked  newspaper  work.  But  it  came  home  to  her 
that  going  on  this  way  she  would  never  learn  English, 
and  at  that  time  she  wanted  English  because  she 
hoped  to  study  medicine.  So  she  became  a  private 
school  teacher  of  French,  and  within  two  years  she 
had  charge  of  the  French  department  of  the  school. 

In  1901,  six  years  after  her  arrival  in  America, 
she  returned  to  Turkey.  Carefully  guarded  in  her 
pocket  was  a  ticket  back  to  America.  She  had  no  in 
tention  of  staying  in  Constantinople.  Once  in  that 
city  invitations  from  girlhood  friends  began  to  reach 
her.  These  were  now  married  women,  and  so, 
equipped  with  a  new  and  American  point  of  view,  she 
entered  Turkish  harems  as  a  welcome  visitor  from 
whom  there  need  be  no  secrets.  Eight  years  later 
ten  studies  of  Turkish  women,  embodying  what  she 


DEMETRA  VAKA  287 

saw  and  heard  in  1901-2,  were  published  as  a  book, 
Haremlik,  which  means  "the  place  of  the  harem." 
But  to  stick  to  the  order  of  events: 

Demetra  Vaka  returned  to  America  and  the  teach 
ing  of  French  but  not  for  long.  In  1904  she  was 
married  to  Kenneth  Brown,  novelist,  and  had  at  last 
the  continuous  encouragement  and  professional  as 
sistance  necessary  if  she  was  to  become  a  writer  in 
English.  She  had  been  frequently  urged  to  prepare 
for  publication  her  picturesque  experiences.  One 
day  after  her  marriage  she  sent  to  a  magazine  editor 
an  account  of  an  experience  while  on  a  visit  to  Russia. 
It  was  accepted.  That  settled  it.  She  would  write. 

Haremlik  was  her  second  book.  It  made  a  wide 
and  deep  impression.  There  have  been  French, 
Swedish,  German,  Italian,  Danish  and  Dutch  trans 
lations.  It  is  not  fiction,  and  neither,  essentially,  is 
Mrs.  Brown's  later  book,  A  Child  of  the  Orient, 
which  is  the  tale  of  the  author's  own  childhood  and 
early  life  in  Constantinople,  of  a  Greek  girl  with 
Turkish  friends  and  playmates.  The  flavor  of  the 
Arabian  Nights  fills  the  pages  of  Haremlik  and  A 
Child  of  the  Orient.  The  final  chapters  of  the  second 
book  give  Demetra  Vaka's  first  impressions  of  Amer 
ica,  the  effect  upon  a  girl  in  her  teens  of  a  land  al 
most  as  different  from  Paris  as  Paris  had  been  from 
Constantinople  and  Athens. 

Mrs.  Brown's  latest  book  is  a  war  book  but  of  a 
quite  exceptional  character.  To  understand  its  gen 
esis  you  must  remember  that  she  is,  though  by  her 
marriage  an  American  citizen,  a  Greek  by  race.  Her 
love  for  Greece,  her  hopes  for  its  future,  are  pretty 


288  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

clearly  disclosed  in  the  opening  chapter  of  Haremlik. 
And  so  when  the  European  War  had  passed  its  first 
stages  and  the  political  situation  in  Greece  had  de 
veloped  into  a  struggle  between  King  Constantine  and 
Venizelos,  a  struggle  in  which  the  King's  attitude 
threatened  national  dishonor,  Demetra  Kenneth  Brown 
resolved  to  go  over  to  Greece,  interview  the  leaders  of 
both  factions,  and  save  Greece  for  the  Allies — at  least 
endeavor  to  see  that  Greece  fulfilled  her  treaty  ob 
ligations,  such  as  those  entered  upon  with  Serbia. 

Looking  at  the  enterprise  now  Mrs.  Brown  is  the 
first  to  concede  its  quixotism,  its  hopelessness,  its 
ridiculousness  from  the  start.  And  yet  it  proved  im 
mensely  worth  while  in  unsuspected  ways.  Going  to 
London,  the  novelist  succeeded  in  getting  to  Lloyd 
George;  afterward  she  had  access  to  other  high  per 
sonages  in  the  Allied  countries.  Besides  French  she 
knows  Italian.  At  Athens  all  doors  were  open  to  hen 
She  interviewed  not  once  but  many  times  King  Con 
stantine  himself  and  his  generals.  Afterward  she  went 
to  Salonica  and  talked  with  Venizelos.  When  she  had 
done  she  was  able  to  write,  purely  as  a  reporter,  In 
the  Heart  of  German  Intrigue,  one  of  the  notable  ex 
poses  of  the  war.  Out  of  the  mouths  of  Constantine 
and  his  aides  she  convicted  them.  Her  series  of  in 
terlocking  interviews  built  up  a  complete  and  fatal 
revelation  of  what  Germany,  with  the  connivance  of 
Constantine's  government,  had  planned  to  do. 

Mrs.  Brown's  work  as  a  reporter  of  royalties  and 
others  and  even  her  autobiographical  books  such  as 
A  Child  of  the  Orient  and  Haremlik  are,  strictly  con 
sidered,  outside  the  scope  of  this  sketch,  which  has  to 


DEMETRA  VAKA  289 

do  with  her  primarily  as  an  American  novelist  and  a 
woman.  As  a  novelist  she  has  several  books  to  her 
credit  besides  her  initial  offering,  The  First  Secretary. 
The  Duke's  Price,  written  with  her  husband;  Finella 
in  Fairyland,  In  the  Shadow  of  Islam,  and  The  Grasp 
of  the  Sultan,  which  was  first  published  anonymously 
("by?"),  are  all  hers,  as  well  as  The  Heart  of  the 
'Balkans.  Of  all  these  The  Grasp  of  the  Sultan,  which 
received  serial  publication  and  sold  well  even  before 
the  disclosure  of  the  author's  identity,  is  the  most  in 
teresting  and  most  deserving  of  detailed  considera 
tion  in  this  place. 

The  novel  was  published  in  1915  (as  a  book  in 
June,  1916)  and  represents  Demetra  Vaka's  skill 
after  some  ten  years'  apprenticeship  at  writing  in 
English.  A  young  Englishman,  having  wasted  a 
fortune,  drifts  to  Constantinople,  and  is  appointed, 
through  the  agency  of  a  countryman  who  has  become 
a  Turkish  admiral,  tutor  to  the  imperial  Ottoman 
princes.  The  youngest  in  his  charge  is  4-year-old 
Prince  Bayazet,  whose  mother  is  a  beautiful  Greek 
girl  of  the  harem.  She  has  dared  to  defy  the  Sultan, 
who,  failing  in  entreaty,  strives  to  break  her  will  by 
taking  her  son  away  from  her.  By  a  ruse  of  the 
head  eunuch,  she  recovers  the  child  and  obtains  the 
Sultan's  pledge  that  they  shall  be  unmolested  for  five 
years. 

This  is  the  background  for  a  romance.  The  young 
English  tutor  falls  in  love  with  the  Greek  girl  and 
plans  to  escape  with  her  and  the  little  Prince  Bayazet. 

The  story  is  told  with  expertness,  without  indirec 
tion,  with  a  fine  control  of  suspense  and  with  thrill 


290  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

after  thrill.  The  finest  thing  about  it  is  the  constant 
discovery  to  the  reader  of  the  author's  thorough 
knowledge  of  her  people  and  her  setting.  Assuming 
that  it  could  have  been  written  by  an  American,  it 
must  have  been  preceded  by  weeks  of  study  supple 
mented  by  foreign  travel;  whether  a  person  not  born 
and  bred  as  Demetra  Vaka  was  could  have  written 
it,  even  after  extensive  "documentation,"  seems 
doubtful.  We  should  say  the  thing  would  be  quite 
impossible  were  we  not  mindful  of  the  late  F.  Marion 
Crawford,  of  whose  ingenious  and  convincing  tales 
Mrs.  Brown's  inevitably  remind  us.  He,  too,  wrote 
one  or  more  novels  of  Constantinople,  with  what  his 
torical  accuracy  we  can't  undertake  to  speculate. 
Possibly  Mrs.  Brown  can  pick  a  hundred  holes  in 
them  respecting  matters  of  fact!  However,  they  had, 
for  the  American  reader,  an  effect  of  perfect  veri 
similitude,  and  it  is  this  effect  precisely  that  Mrs. 
Brown's  stories  are  enriched  with.  Only,  in  her  case, 
we  know  that  the  likeness  to  truth  is  felt  because  the 
truth  is  there.  She  should  do  for  us  hereafter,  if 
her  restless  spirit  will  permit,  what  Crawford  did. 
Give  us  romances,  Demetra  Vaka,  give  us  the  East; 
stay  with  us,  write  for  us  novel  after  novel  of  the 
sort  that  used  to  come,  one  or  two  a  year,  from  that 
villa  at  Sorrento  where  lived  so  long  and  wrought  so 
faithfully  the  creator  of  Dr.  Isaacs  and  the  chronicler 
of  the  braveries  of  Prince  Saracinesca! 


DEMETRA  VAKA  291 

BOOKS  BY  DEMETRA  VAKA 

The  First  Secretary,  1907. 

Haremlik,  1909. 

The  Duke's  Price,  1910. 

Finella  in  Fairyland,  1910. 

In  the  Shadow  of  Islam,  1911. 

A  Child  of  the  Orient,  1914. 

The  Grasp  of  the  Sultan,  1916. 

The  Heart  of  the  Balkans,  1917. 

In  the  Heart  of  German  Intrigue,  1918. 

Demetra  Vaka's  books  are  published  by  Houghton 
Mifflin  Company,  Boston. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 


THE  most  interesting  thing  about  Edna  Ferber 
is  that  she  was  born  in  Kalamazoo.  No,  the 
most  interesting  thing  is  that  she  threw  her 
first  novel  in  the  wastebasket  whence,  like  Kipling's 
Recessional,  it  was  retrieved  by  another.  No,  no !  the 
most  interesting  thing  about  Edna  Ferber  is  that 
she's  a  superb  short  story  writer,  one  of  the  best  in 
America,  one  of  the  dozen  best. 
|  You  are  all  wrong.  The  supremely  interesting  fact 
about  Edna  Ferber  is  this:  She  invented  the  Tired 
Business  Woman. 

When  writing  about  Miss  Ferber  why  be  dull? 
Why  go  in  for  the  higher  criticism?  As  for  the  lower 
criticism,  we  hope  we  are  above  it.  Certainly  she  is. 
To  get  back  to  name,  dates,  etc. :  Chicago,  Des 
Moines  and  Appleton,  Wisconsin,  all  have  a  stake  in 
Miss  Ferber's  success.  Kalamazoo  doesn't  vocif 
erate.  It  doesn't  have  to,  for  she  was  born  there  and 
though  seven  cities  claimed  Homer  dead  it  will  be 
no  use  for  seven  or  eight  or  six  places  to  claim  Edna 
Ferber  living.  Kalamazoo  will  see  to  that;  Kala 
mazoo,  Michigan,  where  she  made  her  debut — the 
only  debut  that's  really  worth  making — on  August  15, 
1887.  That  is  why  we  shall  speak  of  her  very  re- 

292 


EDNA  FERBER  293 

spectfully.  She  is  a  month  older  than  we  are  and  a 
month  is  everything. 

The  daughter  of  Jacob  Charles  Ferber  and  Julia 
(Neuman)  Ferber.  Educated  in  the  public  and  high" 
schools  of — alas  for  Kalamazoo! — Appleton,  Wis 
consin.  At  seventeen  she  became  a  reporter  on  the 
Appleton  Daily  Crescent — "the  youngest  real  reporter 
in  the  world."  She  has  it  on  us.  We  were  almost 
nineteen  when — but  never  mind.  Appleton,  we  hear, 
soon  became  too  small  for  Miss  Ferber.  Appletons 
have  a  way  of  doing  that,  or  isn't  it  rather  that  the 
Edna  Ferbers  have  a  way  of  growing  too  big  for  the 
Appletons?  Anyway,  Miss  Ferber  went  to  Milwau 
kee  and  then  to  a  big  Chicago  daily,  the  Tribune,  to 
be  exact.  In  Milwaukee  she  worked  on  the  Journal. 
Dawn  O'Hara,  her  first  book,  was  written  in  the  time 
she  could  spare  from  newspaper  work.  After  it  was 
completed  she  did  not  like  it.  It  was  her  mother  who 
rescued  the  manuscript  from  the  wastebasket  and  sent 
it  to  a  publisher,  the  same  person  mentioned  in  the 
dedication  of  the  novel:  "To  my  dear  mother  who 
frequently  interrupts  and  to  my  sister  Fannie  who 
says  'Sh-sh-sh!'  outside  my  door." 

The  best  piece  of  work  Mrs.  Ferber  ever  did!  The 
book  took  publisher  and  public  by  storm.  It  came 
out  in  1911  and  in  the  same  year  the  new  American 
author  attained  the  dignity  of  twenty-four  years.  Our 
copy  of  Dawn  O'Hara  is  marked  "eighth  edition," 
but  as  it  is  a  reprinted  copy  that  may  understate,  or 
rather  under-indicate,  the  book's  success.  A  few 
thousands  one  way  or  another  hardly  matters  among 
so  many  thousands  of  copies  sold! 


294  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

Without  pressing  the  autobiographical  idea  too  hard 
it  is  perfectly  evident  that  much  of  the  background  of 
Dawn  O'Hara  is  from  Miss  Ferber's  own  experience, 
notably  the  settings  in  Milwaukee.  How  she  could 
ever  have  been  so  dissatisfied  with  her  story  as  to  dis 
card  it  utterly  any  present-day  reader  will  be  puzzled 
to  imagine.  It  is  extremely  well  told.  It  is  full  of 
the  perfect  human — humorously  human — quality 
which  lifts  so  many  of  Miss  Ferber's  short  stories  into 
high  place.  Take  this  passage: 

"The  Whalens  live  just  around  the  corner.  The 
Whalens  are  omniscient.  They  have  a  system  of  news 
gathering  which  would  make  the  efforts  of  a  New 
York  daily  appear  antiquated.  They  know  that  Jenny 
Laffin  feeds  the  family  on  soup  meat  and  oatmeal 
when  Mr.  Lafifm  is  on  the  road ;  they  know  that  Mrs. 
Pearson  only  shakes  out  her  rugs  once  in  four  weeks ; 
they  can  tell  you  the  number  of  times  a  week  that 
Sam  Dempster  comes  home  drunk;  they  know  that 
the  Merkles  never  have  cream  with  their  coffee  be 
cause  little  Lizzie  Merkle  goes  to  the  creamery  every 
day  with  just  one  pail  and  three  cents ;  they  gloat  over 
the  knowledge  that  Professor  Grimes,  who  is  a  mar 
ried  man,  is  sweet  on  Gertie  Ashe,  who  teaches  sec 
ond  reader  in  his  school ;  they  can  tell  you  where  Mrs. 
Black  got  her  seal  coat,  and  her  husband  only  earning 
two  thousand  a  year;  they  know  who  is  going  to  run 
for  mayor,  and  how  long  poor  Angela  Sims  has  to 
live,  and  what  Guy  Donnelly  said  to  Min  when  he 
asked  her  to  marry  him. 

"The  three  Whalens — mother  and  daughters — hunt 
in  a  group.  They  send  meaning  glances  to  one  an- 


EDNA  FERBER  295 

other  across  the  room,  and  at  parties  they  get  together 
and  exchange  bulletins  in  a  corner.  On  passing  the 
Whalen  house  one  is  uncomfortably  aware  of  shad 
owy  forms  lurking  in  the  windows,  and  of  parlor  cur 
tains  that  are  agitated  for  no  apparent  cause." 

Beautiful!  Gardiner  of  Harvard  could  have  turned 
it  inside  out  for  you  and  have  shown  you  just  where 
Miss  Ferber  impinged  on  your  sensations  and  how 
and  to  what  end.  .  .  .  But  the  thing  shows  the  facil 
ity  of  her  best  work.  Are  the  Whalens  important  to 
the  story  of  Dawn  O'Hara?  They  are  not.  They 
are  merely  figures  on  the  canvas,  amusing  but  unim 
portant  people,  no  more  than  "brushed  in"  but  brushed 
in  with  a  firmness  of  touch,  a  fidelity  of  detail,  a 
humorous  artist  eye  that  is,  as  we  say,  "taking"  or 
"fetching"  and  wholly  delightful. 

Since  1911  with  short  stories  and  a  book  a  year 
there  is  nothing  to  chronicle  but  a  progressive  and 
uninterrupted  success.  Nothing  except  the  Tired 
Business  Woman.  Make  no  mistake;  this  creation  of 
Miss  Ferber's  is  not  a  feminine  counterpart  of  the 
Tired  Business  Man.  The  T.  B.  W.  does  not  go  to 
musical  shows  and  sit  in  the  front  rows.  She  does 
not  telephone  home  to  the  husband  that  she  is  sorry 
but  important  business  will  detain  her  downtown  this 
evening.  She  does  not  bring  home  old  friends  unex 
pectedly  to  dinner,  or  worse,  not  bring  them  home  to 
dinner.  She  is  man-less  but  not  because  she  need  be. 
She  is  unmarried  or  a  widow.  She  has  a  boy,  like 
Jock  McChesney,  and  finds  the  task  of  making  a  man 
of  him,  in  outside  hours  not  devoted  to  earning  their 
living,  a  woman-sized  job!  Give  Edna  Ferber  credit 


for  this,  that  she  has  done  as  much  as  the  cleverest 
feminist  to  make  the  world  see  the  self-reliant  woman 
as  she  is,  and  not  as  the  world  deduces  she  may  be. 
A  woman,  yes,  and  a  mother,  yes!  But  a  regular 
person  above  everything  else.  Read,  or  re-read,  Emma 
McChesney  &  Co.  with  this  in  a  corner  of  your  mind 
and  you  will  be  thankful  to  Miss  Ferber  when  you 
have  finished.  Some  thanks,  too,  may  go  to  Ethel 
Barrymore,  whose  impersonation  of  the  Tired  But 
Admired  (and  admirable)  Business  Woman  of  Miss 
Ferber's  fiction  reenforced  the  lesson  of  the  book  with 
the  ocular  demonstration  of  the  play. 

Miss  Ferber  is  going  forward.  The  evidence  of  it 
will  be  found  in  the  stories  contained  in  her  latest 
book,  Cheerful — By  Request  (1918)  and  perhaps  par 
ticularly  in  the  story  in  that  volume  called  The  Gay 
Old  Dog.  At  thirty-one  she  has  her  best  years — as 
literary  records  go — before  her.  No  painstaking  ap 
praisal  of  her  work  would  be  wise  at  this  time.  In 
the  next  two  or  three  years  she  may  overshadow 
everything  she  has  done  so  far.  We  hope  so.  Be 
cause  then,  bearing  in  mind  that  month's  initial  dif 
ference,  we  shall  have  high  hopes  ourselves! 

BOOKS  BY  EDNA  FERBER 

Dawn  O'Hara,  1911. 
Buttered  Side  Down,  1912. 
Roast  Beef  Medium,  1913. 
Personality  Plus,  1914. 
Emma  McChesney  &  Co.,  1915. 


EDNA  FERBER  297 

Fanny  Herself,  1917. 
Cheerful — By  Request,  1918. 

Published  by  Frederick  A.  Stokes  Company,  New 
York,  except  Cheerful — By  Request,  which  is  pub 
lished  by  Doubleday,  Page  &  Company,  New  York. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

DOROTHY   CANFIELD  FISHER 

MRS.  FISHER  is,  we  think,  the  only  novelist 
of  whose  work  we  shall  say  nothing.  Why? 
Because  it  "speaks  for  itself"?  Certainly 
not  Every  one's  work  does  that.  No,  because  it 
does  not  speak  sufficiently  for  her. 

You  are  asked  here  and  now  to  think  of  her  not  as 
a  novelist  but  as  a  woman.  For  as  a  novelist  we  could 
say  of  her  only  the  obvious  fact,  that  she  is  a  top- 
notcher  judged  by  any  and  every  standard.  The 
woman  who  could  write  The  Squirrel-Cage  does  not 
need  any  critical  tests  applied  to  determine  the  worth 
and  genuineness  of  her  work,  nor  the  sincerity  of  it. 
What  she  does  need,  or  rather,  what  her  readers  and 
all  readers  need,  is  a  reminder  of  her  role  as  teacher, 
helper,  friend.  She  is  one  of  those  fine  people  whose 
work  makes  the  plain  word  "service"  a  shining  and 
symbolic  thing.  "Service"  is  no  longer  a  word  but  a 
ritual  and  a  liturgy. 

We  shall  give  an  outline  of  her  life  but  as  the 
friend  who  prepared  it  for  us  says  in  a  letter  enclos 
ing  it :  "It  does  not  do  justice  to  her  very  useful  war 
work."  This  letter  further  says,  with  simple  truth: 

"She  has  been  one  who  has  not  broken  down  under 
the  strain  but  has  gone  on  doing  a  prodigious  amount 

298 


DOROTHY  CANFIELD  FISHER        299 

of  work.  First  running,  almost  entirely  alone,  the 
work  for  soldiers  blinded  in  battle,  editing  a  maga 
zine  for  them,  running  the  presses,  often  with  her  own 
hands,  getting  books  written  for  them;  all  the  time 
looking  out  for  refugees  and  personal  cases  that  came 
under  her  attention;  caring  for  children  from  the 
evacuated  portions  of  France,  organizing  work  for 
them;  then  she  dropped  all  that  and  ran  the  camp  on 
the  edge  of  the  war  zone  where  her  husband  was  sta 
tioned  to  train  the  young  ambulance  workers;  and 
while  there  she  started  any  number  of  important 
things — reading  rooms,  etc.  Then  she  went  back  to 
her  work  in  Paris.  Just  now  she  is  at  the  base  of  the 
Pyrenees,  organizing  a  Red  Cross  hospital  for  chil 
dren  from  the  evacuated  portions. 

"All  this  is  reflected,  or  I  should  say  the  result  of 
her  experiences  is  reflected  in  her  Home  Fires  in 
France,  just  published  this  fall.  It  is  just  what  the 
title  says,  and  I  don't  know  anything  that  has  been 
written  anything  like  it.  There  isn't  any  bursting 
shrapnel  in  it,  no  heroics  or  medals  of  honor;  it  is 
merely  full  of  the  French  women  and  some  Americans 
who  have  done  the  steady,  quiet  work  of  holding  life 
together  until  the  war  should  be  over.  Steadily  they 
try  to  reconstruct  what  the  Germans  have  de 
stroyed.  ...  It  is  the  best  thing  she  has  done." 

It  and  the  deeds  back  of  it.  When  you  read  Home 
Fires  in  France  you  will  understand  why  one  man 
who  read  proof  on  it  exclaimed : 

"If  every  one  knew  this  book  as  I  know  it  there 
would  be  no  doubt  of  it  selling  100,000  copies  at 
once." 


300  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

With  The  Squirrel-Cage,  published  in  1912,  Mrs. 
Fisher  became  a  novelist.  It  was  followed  by  two 
books  on  child  training,  A  Montessori  Mother  (1913) 
and  Mothers  and  Children  (1914),  and  then  the  teach 
er  resumed  the  role  of  storyteller  with  The-  Bent  Tivig. 
Before  The  Squirrel-Cage  Mrs.  Fisher  was  merely 
the  author  of  a  few  textbooks.  After  it  she  was  an 
important  figure  in  American  fiction. 

Dorothy  Canfield  Fisher  is  thirty-eight  years  old, 
a  bachelor  of  philosophy  and  a  doctor  of  philosophy, 
mistress  of  six  languages,  author  of  twelve  books, 
mother  of  two  children.  She  and  her  husband,  John 
Redwood  Fisher,  captain  of  a  Columbia  football  team, 
himself  a  critic  and  writer,  divided  their  time  before 
the  war  between  a  farm  near  a  little  Vermont  village 
and  occasional  excursions  to  New  York,  Rome  or 
some  other  metropolis.  In  1915,  Mr.  Fisher  joined 
the  ambulance  service  and  went  to  France.  Mrs. 
Fisher  was  at  work  on  Understood  Betsy,  but  as  soon 
as  that  was  finished  she  followed  her  husband  to  Paris 
with  her  children.  Since  then  she  has  been  absorbed 
in  war  relief  work  which  has  ranged  from  running  an 
establishment  that  prints  books  for  soldiers  blinded  in 
battle  to  managing  five  peasant  women  cooks  and 
buying  supplies  for  a  large  training  camp  for  ambu 
lance  drivers.  Mr.  Fisher  is  now  a  first  lieutenant  in 
the  United  States  Army  in  France. 

Mrs.  Fisher  was  born  in  Lawrence,  Kansas,  where 
her  father  was  president  of  the  University  of  Kansas. 
Ast  a  high  school  girl  in  Lawrence  she  made  friends 
with  an  army  officer  on  the  staff  of  a  nearby  war  col 
lege.  He  taught  her  to  ride  horseback  and  introduced 


DOROTHY  CANFIELD  FISHER        301 

her  to  his  hobby,  higher  mathematics.  This  friend 
ship  has  lately  been  resumed  in  France.  The  young 
army  officer  is  now  General  John  J.  Pershing. 

Dorothea  Frances  Canfield,  or  Dorothy  Canfield, 
became  an  undergraduate  in  Ohio  State  University, 
of  which  her  father  (James  Hulme  Canfield)  was 
president  at  that  time.  Her  degree  of  bachelor  of 
philosophy  came  from  Ohio  State  University.  When 
Mr.  Canfield  moved  to  New  York  to  be  librarian  at 
Columbia  University  his  daughter  took  up  postgrad 
uate  work  there,  specializing  in  the  Romance  lan 
guages,  and  won  her  degree  of  doctor  of  philosophy. 
For  three  years,  from  1902  to  1905,  she  was  secre 
tary  of  the  Horace  Mann  School..  Her  associates  all 
her  life  have  been  cosmopolitan  in  the  proper  sense  of 
that  word.  Her  mother,  Flavia  (Camp)  Canfield,  is 
an  artist  of  some  attainment  and  with  her  Dorothy 
Canfield  spent  a  good  deal  of  her  life  abroad.  The 
result — one  result — was  friends  of  all  nationalities 
living  pretty  much  all  over  the  world.  Mrs.  Fisher  is 
consequently  a  person  of  broad  sympathies,  but  the 
predominant  quality  in  her  seems  to  be  a  clear-headed, 
hearty  New  England  Americanism.  At  one  time  or 
another  she  has  picked  up  a  good  knowledge  of 
French,  German,  Italian,  Spanish  and  Danish.  French 
she  acquired  as  a  child  tumbling  about  in  the  Paris 
studio  of  her  mother.  Now  her  children  are  learning 
their  French  in  Paris. 

After  their  marriage  in  1907,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fisher 
left  New  York  and  went  hunting  for  a  working  and 
living  place  far  away  from  the  city.  On  the  side  of 
one  of  the  Green  Mountains,  near  the  little  village 


302  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

of  Arlington,  Vermont,  they  found  a  fair  approxi 
mation  of  what  they  were  after.  The  old  house  al 
ready  on  the  farm  they  made  over  to  suit  their  needs 
and  wishes.  A  spring  branch  on  the  mountain  side 
was  boxed  up  and  the  water  piped  down  to  the  house. 
An  electric  lighting  plant  was  installed.  A  study  en 
tirely  separate  from  the  house  was  built.  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Fisher  make  no  effort  to  have  the  farm  culti 
vated.  That  is,  they  didn't  in  the  good — or  bad — old 
days  before  the  war.  They  were  on  it  to  live  and 
work,  but  not  to  bury  themselves  in  agricultural  de- 
. tails.  The  nearest  approach  to  tilling  the  soil  was 
the  garden,  the  re- foresting  of  the  mountain  side  with 
baby  pine  trees,  and  the  rejuvenation  of  an  ancient 
saw  mill  to  work  up  the  scrub  timber. 

Arlington  is  "in  no  sense  a  literary  rural  com 
munity."  The  village  has  only  a  few  hundred  people 
in  it,  is  two  miles  away  from  the  Fisher  farm,  and 
its  post-office  has  few  manuscripts  to  handle  either 
way.  In  1911-12,  for  variety,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fisher 
went  to  Rome  for  the  winter.  It  was  there  that  she 
made  the  acquaintance  of  Madame  Montessori.  An 
American  publisher  was  having  trouble  with  the  trans 
lation  of  Madame  Montessori's  book  about  her  peda 
gogical  system.  Knowing  that  Mrs.  Fisher  was  an 
excellent  Italian  scholar  and  that  she  was  already  on 
the  ground,  the  publisher  arranged  for  her  assistance 
with  the  translation.  Almost  every  day  of  that  win 
ter  Mrs.  Fisher  was  at  the  Casa  di  Bambini  (Chil 
dren's  House)  looking  after  the  translation  and  help 
ing  to  entertain  and  to  explain  the  Montessori  system 
to  commissions  sent  from  England,  France  and  other 


DOROTHY  CANFIELD  FISHER        303 

European  countries.  The  direct  result  of  that  winter 
was  Mrs.  Fisher's  A  Montessori  Mother,  a  simplifi 
cation  and  adaptation,  in  her  delightfully  easy  and 
half-humorous  style,  of  the  Italian  system  to  the  needs 
of  American  mothers.  Besides  being  published  in  the 
United  States,  Canada,  England  and  India  this  book 
has  been  translated  into  five  foreign  languages. 

Mothers  and  Children  appeared  the  next  year  and 
four  stories — The  Bent  Twig,  Hillsboro  People,  The 
Real  Motive  and  Understood  Betsy — preceded  Home 
Fires  in  France.  Understood  Betsy  was  promptly 
translated  into  French,  as  was  Hillsboro  People,  a  col 
lection  of  New  England  short  stories  which  sold  in 
the  tens  of  thousands  here  and  abroad.  Mrs.  Fisher 
is  a  frequent  contributor  to  French  periodicals  as  well 
as  to  the  principal  American  magazines. 

BOOKS  BY  DOROTHY  CANFIELD  FISHER 

Corneille  and  Racine  in  England,  1904. 
English  Rhetoric  and  Composition  (with  Professor 
G.  R.  Carpenter},  1906. 

What  Shall  We  Do  Now?  1906. 
Gunhild,  1907. 
The  Squirrel-Cage,  1912. 
A  Montessori  Mother,  1913. 
Mothers  and  Children,  1914. 
The  Bent  Twig,  1915. 
Hillsboro  People,  1916. 
The  Real  Motive,  1917. 
Understood  Betsy,  1917. 
Home  Fires  in  France,  1918. 

Published  by  Henry  Holt  &  Company,  New  York. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

AMELIA  E.  BARR 

ON  March  17,  1918,  the  author  of  this  book  had 
the  pleasure,  as  editor  of  Books  and  the  Book 
World  of  The  Sun,  New  York,  of  printing 
what  is  certainly  the  best  account  extant  of  Amelia 
E.  Barr  within  a  reasonable  length.  Although  the 
article  was  unsigned  it  was  the  work  of  Mr.  A.  El- 
wood  Corning,  who  had  been  a  neighbor  of  Mrs.  Barr 
at  Richmond  Hill,  Long  Island,  New  York.  It  was 
based  upon  a  personal  visit  and  interview.  This  chap 
ter  is  really  nothing  more  than  a  reprint  of  Mr.  Corn- 
ing's  article  with  a  few  changes,  particularly  those  ne 
cessitated  by  Mrs.  Barr's  death  on  March  10,  1919,  at 
her  Richmond  Hill  home.  To  Mr.  Corning,  then,  the 
credit  of  this  chapter. 

Amelia  E.  Barr  struck  the  popular  taste  more  than 
thirty  years  ago  with  her  Bow  of  Orange  Ribbon.  She 
was  one  of  the  most  prolific  of  present-day  writers  of 
fiction.  Her  last  completed  novel,  The  Paper  Cap, 
published  in  the  fall  of  1918,  brought  the  number  of 
her  books  up  to  over  seventy,  and  this  does  not  include 
hundreds  of  short  stories,  a  poem  a  week  for  fourteen 
'years,  written  for  Bonner's  Ledger,  or  the  numerous 
;  newspaper  articles,  essays  and  verses  of  the  first  four 
teen  years  of  her  literary  life. 

304 


AMELIA  E.  BARR  305 

On  March  29,  1918,  Mrs.  Barr  entered  her  eighty- 
eighth  year.  In  the  preceding  twelye  months  she  had 
published  three  books,  and  shortly  before  her  eighty- 
seventh  birthday  (or  the  birthday  which  made  her 
eighty-seven  years  old!)  she  completed  a  fourth  in 
manuscript !  This  was  The  Paper  Cap,  the  scenes  of 
which  are  laid  in  Yorkshire,  England,  where  the  nov 
elist  spent  a  part  of  her  childhood.  Mrs.  Barr  thought 
it  one  of  the  best  stories  she  had  written.  The  paper 
cap  of  the  title  is  that  of  the  workingman  and  the 
story  centers  around  his  fight  for  the  suffrage.  It 
was  really  a  contest  between  the  hand  loom  and  the 
power  loom. 

It  was  about  4  in  the  afternoon  when  Mr.  Corning 
reached  Mrs.  Barr's  study  on  the  visit  which  preceded 
the  preparation  of  his  article.  Mrs.  Barr  had  been 
writing  since  7  that  morning,  with  only  a  brief  inter 
mission  for  luncheon,  and  was  not  feeling,  she  de 
clared,  so  well  as  usual.  "This  is  one  of  mamma's 
blue  Mondays,"  said  her  daughter.  But  after  she  had 
begun  to  discuss  current  events,  some  incidents  of  her 
early  life  in  Texas  and  above  all  the  war  Mrs.  Barr 
became  animated.  She  was  an  interesting  and  enthusi 
astic  talker  with  positive  views,  a  power  of  unusually 
apt  expression  and  a  mind  keenly  alert.  Convinced 
of  a  fact,  she  uttered  it  with  passionate  force. 

On  this  particular  afternoon  the  manuscript  of  The 
Paper  Cap  was  lying  on  her  writing  table.  "It  will 
be  done  to-morrow,"  she  said  with  the  spirit  of  one 
who  looks  upon  the  completion  of  a  work  which  has 
required  much  thought  and  painstaking  labor.  She 
pushed  the  manuscript  toward  Mr.  Corning;  it  was 


306  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

as  free  of  corrections  and  interpolations  as  if  it  had 
been  freshly  copied  from  a  former  draft.  Mrs.  Barr 
seldom  changed  what  she  first  wrote  and  always  used 
sheets  of  yellow  paper,  finding  this  tint  more  restful 
to  her  eyes  than  white. 

When  weary  of  building  stories  she  handed  the 
manuscript  over  to  a  stenographer  to  be  typewritten. 
Mrs.  Barr  wrote  with  a  lead  pencil.  Going  to  a 
drawer  she  brought  out  a  box  full  of  old  pencil  stubs, 
some  of  which  dated  back  to  the  days  when  she  was 
writing  The  Bow  of  Orange  Ribbon.  A  few  years  ago 
six  or  seven  of  these  stubs  were  given  to  as  many 
friends,  who  had  them  tipped  with  gold  and  made 
into  shawl  pins. 

In  personal  appearance  and  dress  Mrs.  Barr  was 
typically  English.  She  had  a  large  face  and  marvel 
ous  physique,  was  rapid  of  movement  and  lithe  of  step. 
A  flowing  gown  of  some  delicate  shade  was  usually 
worn  loosely  over  a  lace  petticoat,  and  a  beribboned 
cap  of  lace  and  rosebuds  or  sometimes  cowslips  rested 
becomingly  on  her  silvery  hair. 

But  the  most  striking  characteristic  of  this  remark 
able  woman  was  the  retention  of  so  much  youthful 
vigor  and  optimism,  which  she  attributed  to  her  English 
ancestry.  Born  at  Ulverton,  Lancashire,  England, 
March  29,  1831,  Amelia  Barr  was  descended  from  a 
long  line  of  Saxon  forebears,  of  whom  the  men  for 
generations  had  been  either  seamen  or  preachers  of 
the  Gospel.  Her  father,  the  Rev.  Dr.  William  Henry 
Huddleston,  was  a  scholar  and  a  preacher  of  elo 
quence.  The  child's  early  education  was  largely  under 
his  supervision.  As  he  was  a  regular  contributor  to 


AMELIA  E.  BARR  307 

English  reviews,  the  little  daughter  was  brought  up 
in  a  literary  environment 

Before  she  was  six  she  is  said  to  have  known  inti 
mately  the  tales  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  and  nothing 
pleased  her  more  in  those  days  than  to  be  the  recipient 
of  a  new  book,  a  pleasure  seldom  afforded  her.  She 
would  often  accompany  her  father  on  his  preaching 
itineraries  through  the  fishing  villages  and  thus  be 
came  a  lover  of  the  sea,  from  which  she  doubtless 
formed  impressions  which  have  disclosed  themselves 
in  her  fiction. 

At  eighteen  she  was  sent  to  a  Free  Kirk  seminary  in 
Glasgow,  where  she  remained  until  her  marriage  to 
Robert  Barr  in  July,  1850.  For  three  years  the  young 
couple  lived  in  Scotland.  Here  Mrs.  Barr  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  who  years 
later  was  able  to  help  her  begin  her  career  as  a  writer. 

Failure  in  business  compelled  the  Barrs  to  come  to 
America.  They  first  came  to  New  York,  where  the 
future  novelist  saw  for  the  first  time  to  her  great  de 
light  ready-made  dresses  and  oranges,  a  fruit  not 
easily  procurable  in  the  north  of  England  or  Scotland. 

The  Barrs  with  their  two  little  daughters  soon  went 
West,  locating  in  Chicago.  After  a  time  misfortune 
drove  them  South.  They  went  first  to  Austin,  later 
to  Galveston,  Texas.  The  history  of  these  eventful 
and  sorrowful  years  is  told  in  Mrs.  Barr's  autobiog 
raphy,  The  Red  Leaves  of  a  Human  Heart. 

In  Austin  success  was  sandwiched  in  with  failure, 
disappointments  and  heartaches.  In  those  early  days 
on  the  frontier  there  was  a  great  scarcity  of  many 
things  which  went  to  make  up  home  life.  When  Mrs. 


3o8  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

Barr  came  to  America  she  had  been  told  that  she  was 
going  into  a  desolate  and  savage  country  in  which 
there  were  none  of  the  comforts  of  life  and  where 
none  could  be  obtained.  So  she  brought  with  her  a 
great  assortment  of  useful  articles,  such  as  needles, 
tape,  sewing  cotton  (linens,  silks,  etc.).  Finding  that 
they  had  more  than  they  wanted  of  such  things,  the 
Barrs  traded  some  of  them  for  tea  and  other  staple 
articles  of  food. 

Despite  vicissitudes  Mrs.  Barr  never  neglected  her 
reading  or  the  daily  instruction  of  her  children.  The 
noon  hour  was  reserved  for  study  and  at  that  time  no 
one  was  permitted  to  disturb  her.  She  could  be  seen 
daily  sitting  with  a  young  baby  on  her  lap  by  the  open 
door  of  her  log  house  partaking  of  the  noonday  meal 
and  reading  at  the  same  time.  In  all,  Mrs.  Barr  had 
fifteen  children.  Three  daughters  are  now  living,  one 
the  wife  of  Kirk  Munro,  the  popular  writer  for  boys. 

In  jspite  of  her  large  family  Mrs.  Barr  found  time 
to  accomplish  things  outside  household  duties.  Dur 
ing  the  Civil  War,  for  example,  articles  of  amusement 
were  few.  One  was  put  to  great  inconvenience  in 
securing  games.  So  Mrs.  Barr,  an  enthusiastic  whist 
player,  painted  a  pack  of  cards,  which  were  to  those 
who  remember  them  a  most  real  counterpart  of  an 
original  set. 

.  At  the  close  of  the  war  the  Barrs  moved  to  Galves- 
ton,  and  there,  in  1867,  Mrs.  Barr  experienced  the 
overwhelming  sorrow  of  her  life.  Yellow  fever  en 
tered  her  home.  The  whole  family  was  stricken,  and 
before  Mrs.  Barr  herself  had  fully  recovered  she  suf 
fered  the  loss  of  her  husband  and  three  little  sons. 


AMELIA  E.  BARR  309 

After  endeavoring  to  support  herself  and  three 
daughters  in  the  South  she  came  with  them  to  New 
York  in  the  fall  of  1869. 

One  day  she  was  asked  if  she  could  write  stories 
and  replied  that  she  had  often  written  them  for  the 
amusement  of  her  children  but  had  destroyed  them 
after  they  had  served  their  purpose.  She  promised 
to  try  again  and  received  $30  for  the  effort 

"What,  $30  for  that  article?"  she  exclaimed.  "Why, 
I  can  write  three  or  four  of  them  a  week." 

She  eventually  found  work  on  the  Christian  Union, 
of  which  Beecher  was  editor,  and  this  opened  a  career 
which  brought  her  both  a  reputation  and  honor.  At 
first  she  rented  a  few  rooms  at  27  Amity  Street,  Brook 
lyn,  a  house  once  occupied  by  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  al 
though  at  the  time  she  was  unconscious  of  the  fact. 
When  she  moved  into  these  quarters  she  found  that 
after  paying  the  rent  she  had  only  $5  in  her  purse. 

"Well,  girls,"  she  told  her  daughters,  "we  will  have 
a  good  beefsteak  dinner  and  let  to-morrow  take  care 
of  itself."  Even  then  she  felt,  as  she  afterward  said, 
that  "God  and  Amelia  Barr  were  a  multitude." 

For  fourteen  years  Mrs.  Barr  toiled,  meeting  with 
successes  and  rebuffs.  It  was  a  hard  struggle.  After 
working  all  day  in  the  Astor  Library  she  would  often 
at  night  take  her  daughters  to  the  theater,  leaving 
sometimes  in  her  purse  only  enough  money  for  car 
fare  in  the  morning. 

Returning  from  one  of  these  outings  she  discovered 
that  her  house  had  been  broken  into.  Rushing  at  once 
to  the  family  Bible,  she  found  $40  between  the  pages 
where  she  had  placed  it  for  safety.  Not  having  in 


3io  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

those  days  enough  money  to  bank,  she  would  often 
put  bills  behind  pictures,  and  they  were  never  dis 
turbed. 

In  1884  Jan  Vedder's  Wife  was  published.  The 
success  of  this  book  almost  immediately  placed  Mrs. 
Barr  in  the  front  rank  of  popular  American  novelists. 
From  that  time  her  record  was  phenomenal.  Over 
fifty-three  when  her  first  book  appeared,  Mrs.  Barr 
produced  an  average  of  over  two  novels  a  year  and 
at  the  close  of  her  life  she  had  not  one  unsold  manu 
script.  She  had  written  only  one  article,  she  said, 
which  she  was  never  able  to  dispose  of.  And  so  little 
did  she  care  for  her  books  after  they  had  been  written 
that  she  had  not  a  complete  set  of  them  in  her  library, 
which  numbered  several  thousand  volumes. 

She  not  infrequently  took  up  one  of  her  old  novels 
and  after  reading  it  said  that  it  seemed  like  a  new 
story.  "All  my  characters,"  she  once  remarked,  "are 
real  to  me.  They  begin  to  live  and  have  a  personality 
of  their  own.  I  have  started  to  write  a  villain  and  after 
ward  fallen  in  love  with  him  and  made  him  my  hero." 

Mrs.  Barr's  books  were  invariably  sold  outright. 
Years  ago  she  made  a  thorough  study  of  the  early 
history  of  Manhattan  Island,  which  ultimately  formed 
a  foundation  on  which  she  built  eight  historical  novels 
which  stand  out  as  among  the  best  of  her  work. 
Chronologically  considered  they  should  be  read  as 
follows : 

The  House  on  Cherry  Street. 
The  Strawberry  Handkerchief. 
The  Bow  of  Orange  Ribbon. 


AMELIA  E.  BARR  311 

A  Maid  of  Old  New  York. 
A  Song  of  a  Single  Note. 
The  Maid  of  Maiden  Lane. 
Trinity  Bells. 
The  Belle  of  Bowling  Green. 

So  much  Mr.  Corning^  The  author  of  this  book 
can  add  nothing  to  so  extraordinary  a  story.  As  fic 
tion,  Mrs.  Barr's  own  life  and  performance  would 
be  called  incredible.  Her  stories  are  first-rate  stories; 
all  of  them  offer  clean,  imaginative  and  very  real  en 
tertainment;  many  of  them  offer  a  true  and  valuable 
picture  of  vanished  or  vanishing  times,  manners  and. 
people.  Her  achievement  was  much  bigger  and  more 
solid  and  worth  while  than  many,  many  efforts  at  lit 
erary  "art" 


BOOKS  BY  AMELIA  E.  BARR 

Jan  Vedder's  Wife. 

A  Border  Shepherdess. 

Feet  of  Clay. 

Bernicia. 

Remember  the  Alamo. 

She  Loved  a  Sailor. 

The  Lone  House. 

A  Sister  of  Esau. 

Prisoners  of  Conscience. 

The  Tioni  Whelp. 

The  Black  Shilling. 

The  Bow  of  Orange  Ribbon. 


312  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

A  Maid  of  Old  New  York. 

A  Song  of  a  Single  Note. 

The  Maid  of  Maiden  Lane. 

Trinity  Bells. 

The  Belle  of  Bowling  Green. 

The  Red  Leaves  of  a  Human  Heart. 

The  Strawberry  Handkerchief,  1908. 

The  Hands  of  Compulsion,  1 909. 

The  House  on  Cherry  Street,  1909. 

An  Orkney  Maid,  1918. 

The  Paper  Cap,  1918. 

(About  50  other  books.) 

Mrs.  Barr's  novels  are  published  by  V.  Appleton  & 
Company,  New  York.  Some  may  be  had  in  reprint, 
others  are  out  of  print. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

ALICE   HEGAN   RICE 

THE  author  of  Mrs.  Wiggs  of  the  Cabbage 
Patch  was  born  in  1870  in  a  big  old  country 
house  at  Shelbyville,  Kentucky,  the  home  of 
her  grandfather,  Judge  Caldwell.  Her  name  was,  in 
deed,  Alice  Caldwell  Hegan  as  a  girl.  It  was  Alice 
Hegan  when  she  wrote  the  very  small  book  which  is 
quite  as  world  famous  as  Mr.  Dooley,  Mrs.  Wiggs's 
pleasant  contemporary.  It  became  Alice  Hegan  Rice 
on  December  18,  1902,  when  the  daughter  of  Samuel 
W.  Hegan  and  Sallie  P.  Hegan  was  married  to  the 
poet  Cale  Young  Rice.  And  they  have  lived  happily 
ever  after.  They  have  traveled  the  world  over  to 
gether.  They  rest,  between  whiles,  at  a  big,  columned 
house  in  Louisville,  Kentucky.  There  are  photo 
graphs  extant  showing  them  in  pleasant  idleness  on 
the  broad  verandas.  Mr.  Rice  writes  songs  inspired 
by  their  travels  together  which  make  such  books  as 
Wraiths  and  Realities  and  songs  inspired  by  their 
mere  happy  proximity,  making  a  book  such  as  Poems 
to  A.  H.  R.,  both  published  in  1918.  Mrs.  Rice  no 
longer  writes  the  fortunes  of  Mrs.  Wiggs  in  disused 
pages  of  an  old  business  ledger  (for  that  is  how  the 
first  draft  of  Mrs.  Wiggs  of  the  Cabbage  Patch  was 
made).  But  she  writes  as  agreeably  as  ever.  Mostly 

313 


THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

shorter  pieces.  She  is  not  really  a  novelist  but  a  short 
story  writer.  Even  Mrs.  Wiggs  was  but  a  long  short 
story. 

Hegans  have  lived  in  Louisville  pretty  close  to  a 
century — ninety  years  anyway.  Alice  Hegan' s  girl 
hood  was  sheltered  by  a  brick  house  on  Fourth  Street. 
Summers  she  spent  at  Judge  Caldwell's  house,  her 
birthplace,  with  a  negro  nurse  and  "Aunt  Susan"  to 
tell  her  folk  tales,  mostly  about  personable  animals, 
Brer  Fox,  Brer  Rabbit  and  the  rest  of  the  common 
acquaintance  of  Southern  childhood.  Dolls,  church, 
Sunday  School,  day  school  at  "Miss  Hampton's"  in  a 
house  once  the  home  of  George  Keats,  brother  of  the 
poet;  dancing  school  ("in  ruffles  and  in  gorgeous, 
wide,  blue  sashes,  pink  being  prohibited  as  highly  un 
becoming")  ;  dances  at  Gait  House;  "parties,"  coun 
try  dances  in  Shelby ville — these  were  the  tissue  of 
those  youthful  days. 

School  days  over,  Alice  Hegan  wanted  to  go  to 
Paris  and  study  art.  There  was  reason  to  think  that 
she  had  a  talent,  which  would  justify  an  expenditure 
of  time  and  money.  She  abandoned  the  idea  because, 
as  she  says,  "I  was  an  only  daughter.  My  father  and 
mother  needed  me.  It  wouldn't  have  been  right  for 
me  to  go.v 

She  had,  meanwhile,  been  writing;  she  had  always 
been  writing  a  little.  When  she  was  sixteen  the 
Louisville  Courier-Journal  had  published  The  Rev 
eries  of  a  Spinster,  an  anonymous  companion-piece  to 
The  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor.  The  spinster's  reveries 
brought  many  letters  to  the  newspaper,  letters  read 
with  due  appreciation  by  Alice  Hegan,  author  of  spin- 


ALICE  HEGAN  RICE  315 

ster  and  reveries  both.  She  had  also  written  a  few 
short  stories  and  had  been  a  contributor  to  humorous 
papers. 

There  was  nothing  surprising  or  wholly  unpre 
meditated  therefore  in  the  writing  of  Mrs.  Wiggs. 
Alice  Hegan  and  her  mother  kept  a  "give-away  bag" 
which  went  regularly  to  a  "poor  but  merry  and  philo 
sophic  woman"  living  in  a  neglected  quarter  of  Louis 
ville,  out  near  the  railroad  tracks,  in  the  southern  part 
of  the  city.  This  woman  was  the  original  of  Mrs. 
Wiggs.  "The  story  was  not  a  'just-so  story/  "  says 
Margaret  Steele  Anderson  in  her  over-effusive  appre 
ciation  of  Alice  Hegan  Rice,  "nor  was  it  a  photo 
graph,  exact  from  head  to  toe,  but,  in  truth,  a  devel 
opment  of  the  original.  The  merry  woman  served  as 
a  nucleus;  the  rest  was  all  Alice  Hegan."  To  quote 
further : 

"The  manuscript  was  read  one  rainy  Saturday 
morning  to  a  little  group  of  ardent  young  women 
which  called  itself,  with  a  courage  half  gay  and  half 
ironical,  the  Authors'  Club  of  Louisville.  At  that  time 
it  boasted  no  'real  author,'  but  the  following  was  the 
roster  of  the  club:  Evelyn  Snead  Barnett,  Alice  He 
gan  Rice,  Ellen  Churchill  Semple,  George  Madden 
Martin,  Annie  Fellows  Johnston,  Frances  Caldwell 
Macaulay,  Abbie  Meguire  Roach,  Eva  A.  Madden, 
Mary  Finley  Leonard,  Venita  Seibert  White,  Mar 
garet  van  der  Cook  and  Margaret  Anderson.  This 
club  meant  nothing  at  the  time,  but  it  means,  now, 
such  stories  as  Mrs.  Wiggs  and  Mr.  Opp,  Emmy  Lou, 
The  Lady  of  the  Decoration  and  the  Little  Colonel 
books.  It  means  also  such  work  as  Mrs.  Roach's 


3i6  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

studies  of  married  life — which  rendered  a  year  of 
Harper's  very  memorable — and  such  achievement  in 
anthropo-geography  as  has  made  Ellen  Semple  a  name 
on  two  continents  and  a  lecturer  at  Oxford  and  Cam 
bridge.  To  this  little  club  was  read  this  little  story — 
and  the  club,  as  a  body,  became  the  very  figure  of 
laughter,  literally  holding  both  its  sides. 

"The  story  was  published  by  the  Century  Company 
in  October,  1901,  and  that  next  summer,  as  some 
body  put  it,  every  tourist  had  it,  'sticking  up  out  of 
his  pocket.' ' 

There  are  thousands  of  stories  to  illustrate  the 
world  conquest  of  Mrs.  Wiggs.  West  Virginia  coal 
miners  whose  little  homes  contain  no  Bible  have  the 
book.  In  a  village  of  Korea  there  is,  or  used  to  be, 
an  old  woman,  bent  continually  over  Jier  garden, 
known  to  the  English  officers  as  "Mrs.  Wiggs  of  the 
Cabbage  Patch."  In  Sidmouth,  on  the  coast  of  South 
Devon,  England,  was  another  such  person.  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Rice  have  had  Mrs.  Wiggses  pointed  out  to  them 
everywhere — and  they  have  been  everywhere — Sicily, 
China,  India,  Japan  (the  poet  is  a  specialist  in  Ori 
entalism).  "In  India  one  Christmas  day,  after  a 
morning  on  the  Ganges,  after  hours  of  Vedic  hymns 
chanted  by  Brahmin  priests  and  after  a  terrible  vision 
of  the  bodies  on  the  burning  ghats,"  says  Margaret 
Anderson,  "Mrs.  Rice  was  suddenly  jerked  back  into 
modern  life  by  a  billboard  near  Benares.  Mrs.  Wiggs 
would  be  played  there  that  night  by  an  English  com 
pany  !" 

Mrs.  Rice  is  a  good  deal  interested  in  philanthropic 
work  at  home.  The  Rices'  house  stands  in  St.  James 


ALICE  HEGAN  RICE  317 

Court,  a  place  of  trees,  bushes,  wide  sweeps  of  lawn 
and  a  playing  fountain.  The  author  of  Mrs.  Wiggs 
devotes  time  and  personal  effort  to  the  Cabbage  Patch 
Settlement  and  to  a  woman's  club  which  is  a  feature 
of  it.  For  many  years  Mrs.  Rice  was  chiefly  active  in 
work  among  boys.  At  sixteen  she  founded  a  club  for 
youngsters  which  held  weekly  meetings  at  her  own 
home. 

Whe,n  writing  she  works  generally  in  a  snug  room 
or  den  on  the  second  floor  of  her  home,  working 
through  the  quiet  mornings.  She  contrives  somehow 
to  deal  with  a  heavy  correspondence  and  replies  with 
delightful  letters  to  the  letters  of  all  kinds — curious, 
friendly,  grateful — that  she  is  constantly  receiving. 

"Though  Mrs.  Wiggs  has  made  its  author  famous," 
says  Margaret  Anderson,  "Mr.  Opp  is  Mrs.  Rice's 
finest  piece  of  work.  In  the  hero  of  this  story,  which 
is  a  story  of  Dickensian  humor  and  robustness,  we 
mark  a  real  and  very  big  development — a  develop 
ment,  moreover,  which  is  not  a  thing  of  violence  but 
proceeds  along  the  lines  of  the  man's  peculiar  nature. 

"Mrs.  Wiggs  is  fixed,  the  same  at  the  end  of  the 
book  as  at  the  opening;  but  Mr.  Opp  grows,  and  the 
interest  of  the  reader  increases  with  his  growth.  The 
story  has  not  been  read  as  Mrs.  Wiggs  was  read,  but 
for  imagination,  for  spirituality,  and  even  for  humor, 
it  remains  the  better  book. 

"It  is,  indeed,  her  most  distinct  success,  for  Lovey 
'Mary  followed  Mrs.  Wiggs  in  general  character,  while 
'Sandy,  though  wholesome,  engaging,  and  charged  to 
the  full  with  Mrs.  Rice's  humor,  is  not  of  an  equal 
inspiration.  Her  story  of  Billy-Goat  Hill  shows  some 


318  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

excellent  and  delicate  work,  the  figures  of  'Miss  Lady* 
and  the  Doctor  recalling  those  of  Annie  and  her  hus 
band  in  David  Copperfield,  while  Connie  and  Noah 
Wicker  are  done  with  delightful  vim  and  gayety. 

"In  The  Honorable  Percival  Mrs.  Rice  has  aimed 
deliberately  at  the  light,  the  frothy,  the  effect  of  touch- 
and-go,  yet  here  we  note  especially  an  increase  in  her 
art.  The  thing  is  light  and  sure ;  it  is  froth  but  froth 
well-made  and  inviting;  it  does  touch  and  go,  but  it 
touches  with  a  spark  and  goes  vividly. 

"It  is  needless,  however,  to  criticise  her  stories  in 
dividually.  What  we  must  note  of  her  work  is  this : 
It  meets  the  great  human  need  of  cheer,  it  satisfies  a 
great  human  desire  with  its  wholesome  milk  of  kind 
ness.  To  make  many  nations  laugh  and  laugh  inno 
cently;  to  bring  entertainment  to  the  sickbed  and  army 
trench  and  throne  room  and  schoolroom;  and  to  the 
million  common  houses  of  a  million  common  people 
— this  is  the  mission  of  her  books  and  this  their  finest 
achievement." 

Wise  and  honest  words,  these,  of  Margaret  Steele 
Anderson's.  What  she  has  said  so  well  we  shall  not 
attempt  to  better.  We  shall  agree  whole-heartedly 
with  her  that  the  best  praise  was  given  Alice  Hegan 
Rice  "by  a  very  wise  old  man,  who  spoke  for  a  great 
host  of  readers  when  he  said : 

'  'Madam,  I  salute  you !  You  have  done  the  world 
a  service.  You  have  cheered  us,  you  have  made  us 
laugh  happily  and  with  courage.' " 


ALICE  HEGAN  RICE  319 

BOOKS  BY  ALICE  HEGAN  RICE 

Mrs.  Wiggs  of  the  Cabbage  Patch,  1901. 

Lovey  Mary,  1903. 

Sandy,  1905. 

Captain  June,  1907. 

Mr.  Opp,  1909. 

A  Romance  of  Billy-Goat  Hill,  1912. 

The  Honorable  Perdval. 

Calvary  Alley,  1917. 

Miss  Mink's  Soldier  and  Other  Stories,  1918. 

Published  by  the  Century  Company,  New  York. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

ALICE  DUER  MILLER 

IF  Alice  Duer  Miller  would  only  express  herself 
with  a  lofty  obscurity  she  would  be  a  Distin 
guished  Author  and  if  she  would  only  write  about 
a  different  kind  of  people  she  would  be  a  really  popu 
lar  novelist.  Not  that  she  isn't  popular,  but  that  she 
might  be  ten  times  more  so;  and  not  that  her  work 
lacks  distinction,  but  it  lacks  the  peculiar  kind  of  dis 
tinction  which  our  high  critical  minds  rave  about 

She  can  go  deeply — and  deftly — into  the  minds  of 
her  people  and  bring  out  with  a  beautiful  lucidity  and 
no  little  humor  what  she  finds  there.  But  this  satis 
fies  neither  camp.  With  those  who  are  dissatisfied 
because  Mrs.  Miller  does  not  write  "artistically"  (that 
is,  unintelligibly)  about  the  thoughts  and  emotions  of 
her  characters — with  those  we  have  no  patience.  But 
the  others,  the  readers  who  think  this  excellent  writer 
wasting  her  time  o;i  a  worthless  lot  of  subjects,  for 
these  we  feel  a  good  deal  of  sympathy. 

Ladies  Must  Live  is  full  of  clever  conversation; 
so  is  The  Happiest  Time  of  Their  Lives.  Clever  con 
versation  never  sold  10,000  copies  of  a  book  nor  had 
the  slightest  effect  on  a  single  life  except  the  deplora 
ble  effect  of  temporarily  causing  unequipped  readers 
to  simulate  a  cleverness  beyond  their  powers.  More- 

320 


ALICE  DUER  MILLER  321 

over,  the  young  reader  of  such  books  as  these  is  pretty 
likely  to  think  the  people  in  them  half -admirable  be 
cause  they  say  adroit  things — or  say  things  adroitly. 
This  makes  the  young  reader  more  difficult  to  deal 
with  than  ever.  Mrs.  Miller,  or  some  one  for  her, 
will  be  retorting  that  she  cannot  take  too-impression 
able  young  minds  into  account  in  constructing  a  story. 
To  which  only  a  single  answer  is  possible  and  it  is 
this:  Everybody  else  in  the  world  has  to  take  the 
young  into  account;  why  should  not  a  writer  do  so? 

Mrs.  Miller's  books,  then,  should  be  read  by  no  one 
under  thirty.  And  this  not  because  the  reading  of 
them  will  actually  harm  a  younger  person,  but  because 
it  may  make  him  or  her  insufferable  company  for  the 
immediate  future.  It  is  quite  impossible  to  think  of 
Mrs.  Miller's  ingenious  tales  of  persons  in  "society" 
as  harming  anybody;  they  are  too  low  voltage  for 
that.  And  indeed  in  The  Happiest  Time  of  Their 
Lives  we  meet  pleasant  and  positive,  or  "plus"  per 
sons,  such  as  Pete  Wayne  and  his  mother,  the  con 
templation  of  whom  would  be  safe  for  the  most  im 
mature  sixteen-year-old.  But  it  would  be  very,  very 
unsafe  to  set  before  some  young  women  the  splendidly 
delineated  Mrs.  Vincent  Farron  of  that  same  book! 
Just  because  her  husband  knew  perfectly  how  to  deal 
with  her,  how  to  break  her,  it  does  not  follow  that 
thousands  of  decent,  affectionate,  kind  (and  rather 
muddle-headed)  young  men  can  fill  successfully  the 
role  of  tigress  tamers! 

Yes,  the  great  defect  of  Mrs.  Miller's  stories  is  that 
we  seldom  care  to  know  the  people  in  them,  the  Mrs. 
Farrons,  the  Nancy  Almars,  nor  even  the  Christine 


322  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

Fenimers  and  the  innocent  but  tiresomely  insipid  Ma- 
thilde  Severances.  We  will  occasionally  consent  to 
meet  them  and  watch  them  perform  (better  company 
being  lacking  at  the  moment)  for  one  main  reason 
and  only  one:  the  skill  with  which  they  are  brought 
before  us  and  there  put  through  their  tricks.  And  if 
our  very  figure  of  speech  seems  to  have  in  it  some 
thing  derogatory,  to  imply  that  these  persons  are  not 
much  better  than  puppets,  the  implication  is  not  with 
out  an  honest  significance.  Moving  among  artificiali 
ties,  surrounded  by  polite  and  transparent  deceptions, 
it  would  be  too  much  not  to  expect  these  "society" 
folk  to  partake  of  their  environment.  They  are  wholly 
mechanistic,  to  go  to  metaphysics  for  a  suitable  term ; 
they  are  precious  puppets  and  nothing  more;  thanks 
to  Mrs.  Miller's  skill  the  strings  which  control  them 
are  mostly  invisible,  but  the  jerky  motion  of  them 
gives  the  secret  away. 

Having  been  as  honest  about  this  as  we  know  how 
to  be,  let  us  turn  to  the  first  pages  of  Ladies  Must  Live 
and  cull  a  few  samples  of  Mrs.  Miller's  writing,  sam 
ples  which  will  convey  to  those  who  have  not  read  her 
some  idea  of  her  gift  of  epigram  and  facile  and  beau 
tiful  characterization: 

"Mrs.  Ussher  .  .  .  turned  toward  hidden  social 
availability  very  much  as  the  douser's  hazel  wand 
turns  toward  the  hidden  spring.  .  .  .  She  was  un 
aware  of  her  own  powers,  and  really  supposed  that 
her  sudden  and  usually  ephemeral  friendships  were 
based  on  mutual  attraction.  .  .  .  During  the  short 
period  of  their  existence,  Mrs.  Ussher  gave  to  these 
friendships  the  utmost  loyalty  and  devotion.  She 


ALICE  DUER  MILLER  323 

agonized  over  the  financial,  domestic  and  romantic 
troubles  of  her  friends ;  she  sat  up  till  the  small  hours, 
talking  to  them  like  a  schoolgirl ;  during  the  height  of 
their  careers  she  organized  plots  for  their  assistance ; 
and  even  when  their  stars  were  plainly  on  the  decline, 
she  would  often  ask  them  to  lunch,  if  she  happened 
to  be  alone. 

"Many  people,  we  know,  are  prone  to  make  friends 
with  the  rich  and  great.  Mrs.  Ussher's  genius  con 
sisted  in  having  made  friends  with  them  before  they 
were  either." 

Nancy  Almar's  husband  says  to  her : 

"  'I  hope  you'll  explain  to  them  why  I  could  not 


come. 

« « 


You  mean  that  I  would  not  have  gone  if  you 
had?' 

"  'No,'  he  said,  'that  I'm  called  South  on  business/ 

"  'I  shan't  tell  them  that,  but  I'll  tell  them  you  say 
so,  if  you  like.' ' 

She  was  as  good  as  her  word — she  usually  was. 

"  'Would  any  one  like  to  hear  Roland's  explana 
tion  of  why  he  is  not  with  us?' 

"  'Had  it  anything  to  do  with  his  not  being  asked  ?' 
said  a  pale  young  man ;  and  as  soon  as  he  had  spoken 
he  glanced  hastily  round  the  circle  to  ascertain  how 
his  remark  had  succeeded. 

"So  far  as  Mrs.  Almar  was  concerned  it  had  not 
succeeded  at  all,  in  fact,  though  he  did  not  know  it, 
nothing  he  said  would  ever  succeed  with  her  again, 
although  a  week  before  she  had  hung  upon  his  every 
word.  He  had  been  a  new  discovery,  something  un 
known  and  Bohemian,  but  alas,  a  day  or  two  before, 


324  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

she  had  observed  that  underlying  his  socialistic  theo 
ries  was  an  aching  desire  for  social  recognition.  He 
liked  to  tell  his  be  jeweled  hostesses  about  his  friends 
the  car-drivers;  but,  oh,  twenty  times  more,  he  would 
have  liked  to  tell  the  car-drivers  about  his  friends  the 
be  jeweled  hostesses.  For  this  reason  Mrs.  Almar 
despised  him,  and  where  she  despised  she  made  no 
secret  of  the  fact 

"  'Not  asked,  Mr.  Wickham !'  she  said.  'I  assume 
my  husband  is  asked  wherever  I  am,'  and  then  turn 
ing  to  Laura  Ussher  she  added  with  a  faint  smile: 
'One's  husband  is  always  asked,  isn't  he?' 

"  'Certainly,  as  long  as  you  never  allow  him  to 
come,'  said  another  speaker." 

Even  from  so  slight  an  excerpt  we  think  it  will  be 
plain  that  in  the  art  of  characterization  and  in  the 
business  of  writing  dialogue  Mrs.  Miller  has  nothing 
to  learn.  She  is  really  one  of  the  most  hopeful  pros 
pects  in  American  literature  to-day  and  the  great  hope 
for  her  and  for  readers  lies  in  the  possibility — almost 
a  probability — that  she  will  abandon  the  very  re 
stricted  and  unimportant  milieu  of  her  recent  novels 
for  better  fields.  It  is  simple  honesty  to  recognize 
that  The  Happiest  Time  of  Their  Lives  holds  out  a 
great  promise  that  she  will  do  this.  Such  persons  as 
Pete  Wayne  and  his  mother,  and  even  the  rather 
pathetic  grandfather  Mr.  Lanley  (of  the  New  York 
Lanleys)  are  "real,"  that  is,  members  of  the  human 
community  and  not  sickening  products  of  the  social 
hothouses.  If  Mrs.  Miller  will  do  a  novel  in  which 
most  of  the  men  and  most  of  the  women  are  "peo 
pled — regular  people  or  irregular  people,  great  or 


ALICE  DUER  MILLER  325 

small,  does  not  matter;  but  they  must  be  people — we 
in  America  will  be  the  first  to  acclaim  her. 

Of  Mrs.  Miller  herself  there  are  only  a  few  brief 
facts  to  be  stated.  This  tall  and  charming  woman 
was  born  in  New  York  in  1874,  the  daughter  of 
James  G.  K.  Duer  and  Elizabeth  (Meads)  Duer.  She 
was  graduated  from  Barnard  College,  Columbia  Uni 
versity,  in  1899.  She  was  married  to  Henry  Wise 
Miller  of  New  York  on  October  5,  1899.  Her  New 
York  home  on  the  upper  East  Side  of  the  city,  just 
below  Central  Park  and  just  off  Fifth  Avenue,  is  in 
the  most  fashionable  residence  section,  is  in  the  heart 
of  that  region  where  most  of  her  characters  unques 
tionably  live  and  where  most  of  the  others  aspire  to. 

BOOKS  BY  ALICE  DUER  MILLER 

The  Modern  Obstacle,  1903. 

C  alder  on' s  Prisoner,  1904. 

Less  Than  Kin,  1909. 

Blue  Arch,  1910. 

Are  Women  People?  1915. 

Come  Out  of  the  Kitchen,  1916. 

Ladies  Must  Live,  1917. 

The  Happiest  Time  of  Their  Lives,  1918. 

Wings  in  the  Night,  1918.   Poems. 

Published  by  the  Century  Company,  New  York. 


ELEANOR   HALLOWELL  ABBOTT 

ELEANOR  HALLO  WELL  ABBOTT  (Eleanor 
Hallowell  Abbott  Coburn:  Mrs.  Fordyce  Co- 
burn)  is  the  most  fanciful  writer  in  America 
to-day.  Fanciful,  inventive — not  imaginative  in  the 
large  and  proper  sense  of  the  word  imagination.  Her 
method  in  writing  is  utterly  different  from  that  of  any 
other  popular  author.  She  is  in  this  respect  as  unique 
as  Harold  Bell  Wright — to  whom  she  bears  no  resem 
blance  whatever.  Wright  starts  a  novel — we  hope  the 
reader  will  pardon  this  digression — by  making  an 
elaborate  outline,  synopsis,  scenario,  not  of  the  story 
but  of  certain  moral  and  ethical  ideas,  concepts  and 
principles  which  he  wishes  to  impress  upon  his  read 
ers.  Sometimes  up  to  the  very  last  typewritten  draft 
of  one  of  his  books  the  characters  are  known  only  by 
words  denoting  the  things  they  stand  for.  Then,  at 
the  eleventh  hour,  Wright  strikes  out  "Greed"  and 
inserts  "Obadiah  Jackson"  and  "Manliness"  and  in 
serts  "David  Fanning" — and  the  copy  goes  to  the 
printer. 

Mrs.  Coburn,  or  Miss  Abbott  as  we  may  permit 
ourselves  to  call  her  because  of  her  pen  name's  con 
notations — Miss  Abbott  finds  a  title  and  then  con 
structs  her  story.  "Her  stories  are  made  to  revolve 

326 


ELEANOR  HALLOWELL  ABBOTT  327 

around  the  title,  rather  than  an  outgrowth  of  any 
plot,"  says  a  writer  in  the  Boston  Globe,  upon  whose 
article  we  rely  mainly  for  the  facts  of  this  chapter. 
It  is  an  article  with  rather  too  much  fluff  but  it  pre 
sents  the  really  interesting  facts  about  the  author  of 
Molly  Make-Believe  and  presents  them  with  point. 
The  writer  of  it  says:  "Once  a  satisfactory  title  oc 
curs  to  Miss  Abbott,  she  follows  it  in  exactly  the  same 
manner  as  the  detective  who  is  pursuing  a  clue." 

This  is  perfectly  intelligible.  Molly  Make-Believe 
as  a  title  teems  with  ideas;  so  does  The  Sick-a-Bed 
Lady;  so  does  The  White-Linen  Nurse. 

"My  characters  are  always  wholly  imaginary.  I 
have  never  yet  put  a  real  person  in  a  story.  I  doubt 
if  I  ever  shall,  for  once  I  begin  to  weave  a  tale,  imag 
ination  has  too  vivid  a  hold  on  me." 

Upon  this  the  Boston  Globe  writer  remarks,  with  a 
great  deal  of  truthfulness: 

"She  may  choose  a  commonplace  subject — a  girl, 
a  woman,  a  road,  a  husband.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Coburn  im 
mediately  succeeds  in  placing  hers  in  the  uncommon 
category.  It  is  the  qualifying  adjective  that  plays  a 
prominent  part  in  making  her  subjects  peculiarly  orig 
inal.  She  specifies  that  her  heroine  is  a  sick-a-bed 
lady,  her  girl  is  very  tired,  her  thoroughfare  is  a  run 
away  road,  and  even  the  husband  in  her  sanitarium 
story  is  a  Sunday  spouse. 

"It  is  not  her  nomenclature  alone  that  is  unique  and 
attractive.  Added  to  marked  creative  ability,  she  has 
a  quality  of  verbal  fitness,  and  her  phrases  are  charged 
with  amazing  intensity  and  force,  so  that  there  is  an 
exhilaration  in  her  pages.  Indeed,  as  one  of  her 


328  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

friends  said,  after  reading  The  Kink  in  the  Air,  one 
about  decides  that  it  is  the  'kink'  in  this  author's  style 
that  is  its  chiefest  charm." 

Many  scoff ;  Franklin  P.  Adams  used  to  divert  him 
self  with  Eleanor  Hallowell  Abbottisms;  scratching 
the  surface  of  the  ground  like  an  industrious  hen  you 
may  uncover  many  choice  morsels  of  wriggling  Eng 
lish.  But  if  you  think  these  are  all  the  Eleanor  Hal 
lowell  Abbott  books  contain  you  are  as  deluded  as 
the  hen  that  thinks  she  has  uncovered  earth's  deepest 
secrets.  Below,  far  below,  but  not  buried  at  such  a 
depth  as  to  be  uncoverable  by  ordinary  minds,  are 
veins  of  pure  humor,  tenderness;  the  rich  gold  of 
sympathy  and  friendly  fanci  fulness.  They  are  pay 
ing  streaks.  Pick  up  a  reprinted  copy  of  Molly  Make- 
Believe  and  look  at  the  page  in  the  front  which  records 
over  twenty  editions  in  five  years! 

We  follow  the  lead  of  the  Boston  Globe  article: 

Miss  Abbott  works  slowly  and  carefully.  Her 
chief  concern  while  writing  is  with  her  own  feeling 
about  the  tale  she  is  at  work  upon.  Unless  she  comes 
to  like  it  pretty  well  she  does  not  send  it  to  a  pub 
lisher.  It  must  interest  her  first  as  some  sort  of 
warranty  that  it  will  interest  others.  "Painter,  musi 
cian,  writer — whether  anybody  else  likes  your  work 
or  not,"  she  says,  "doesn't  specially  matter  if  you  can 
only  bring  that  work  to  the  point  where  you  like  it 
yourself." 

She  writes  entirely  upon  the  typewriter.  Even  the 
first  draft  is  composed  on  a  machine.  Frequently  she 
spends  the  entire  day  at  her  machine.  In  writing  The 
Sick-a-Bed  Lady  she  devoted  twelve  hours  each  day 


ELEANOR  HALLOWELL  ABBOTT      329 

for  nine  days  to  the  task  and  this,  with  one  exception, 
is  the  quickest  story-making  she  has  ever  accom 
plished.  It  is,  by  any  standard,  a  tremendous  bit  of 
work.  Three,  four,  rarely  six  hours  a  day  is  the  ordi 
nary  day's  work  of  a  busy  writer.  Twelve  hours  on  a 
stretch  can  be  and  is  managed  once  in  a  great  while 
when  circumstances  make  the  work  imperative;  but 
it  is  not  managed  for  more  than  a  day  or  two  and  is 
usually  followed  by  a  complete  rest,  sometimes  in  bed 
and  with  medical  attendance!  Twelve  hours  a  day 
for  nine  days — it  will  make  the  hardiest  shudder. 
Many  of  the  best  American  writers  are  entirely  satis 
fied  if  they  do  500  or  1,000  words  a  day — and  not 
every  day  at  that.  But  as  a  rule  Miss  Abbott  takes 
from  a  month  to  a  year  to  write  in  such  time  as  she 
can  dedicate  to  it  a  short  story,  or  a  long  short  story, 
or  a  short  novel.  In  eight  years  she  wrote  some 
twenty  stories.  For  two  years  in  succession  she  won 
a  $i  ,000  prize  in  Collier's  Weekly  short  story  contests 
with  The  Very  Tired  Girl  and  The  Sick-a-Bed  Lady. 

Before  her  marriage  to  Dr.  Fordyce  Coburn  Miss 
Abbott  was  secretary  and  English  assistant  in  the 
State  Normal  School  at  Lowell,  Massachusetts.  This . 
job  kept  her  at  her  desk  all  day  and  it  was  in  hours 
when  she  might  have  been  expected  to  be  asleep  or 
resting  or  playing  that  she  hunted  titles  and  let  her 
fancy  do  what  it  would  with  them.  She  used  a  pen 
name  at  first.  Her  first  serious  attempts  at  writing 
were  in  verse.  Two  long  poems  published  in  Harper's 
Magazine  attracted  much  attention. 

How  curiously  things  go  in  this  world!    Miss  Ab 
bott  had  furnished  the  text  and  scheme  for  an  adver- 


330  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

tising  circular  sent  out  by  a  Boston  firm.  The  circu 
lar  was  so  strikingly  good  that  business  houses  began 
to  come  to  its  originator  with  offers  of  advertising 
contracts.  Miss  Abbott  was  for  some  time  in  a  state 
of  indecision  as  to  whether  she  should  develop  her 
gift  for  writing  advertisements  or  try  to  succeed  with 
stories.  Finally  she  sent  two  tales  to  two  magazines 
with  the  mental  resolution: 

"If  these  are  rejected,  I  believe  I'll  take  up  com 
mercial  writing." 

But  both  stories  were  accepted.  Miss  Abbott  says 
that  she  owes  her  success  as  a  fictioneer,  therefore,  to 
Lippincott's  Magazine  and  the  Smart  Set  quite  as 
much  as  to  anything  else. 

As  readers  will  have  suspected,  Miss  Abbott  is  a 
member  of  the  family  which  has  attained  distinction 
in  letters  and  theology  both.  She  is  a  daughter  of 
the  Rev.  Edward  Abbott,  sometime  editor  of  the  Lit 
erary  World  of  Boston;  a  niece  of  Dr.  Lyman  Ab 
bott,  editor  of  the  Outlook  and  Henry  Ward  Beech- 
er's  successor  at  Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn;  and  a 
granddaughter  of  the  Jacob  Abbott  who  wrote  the 
Rollo  books  for  boys. 

Miss  Abbott's  father  was  born  in  Farmington, 
Maine,  and  was  graduated  from  New  York  Univer 
sity  in  1860,  seven  years  after  his  brother,  Lyman 
Abbott,  matriculated  at  the  same  institution.  Edward 
Abbott  studied  theology  at  the  Andover  Theological 
Seminary  and  served  as  pastor  of  the  Pilgrim  Con 
gregational  Church  at  Cambridge,  Massachusetts. 
From  1869  to  1878  he  was  editor  of  the  Congrega- 
tionalist;  afterward  he  became  editor  of  the  Literary 


ELEANOR  HALLOWELL  ABBOTT      331 

World.  He  was  ordained  a  minister  of  the  Episcopal 
church  in  1879  and  served  as  rector  of  St.  James's 
Church,  Cambridge,  until  1896.  Like  his  father, 
Jacob  Abbott,  Edward  Abbott  wrote  some  juvenile 
books  as  well  as  several  histories  and  biographies. 

Eleanor  Hallowell  Abbott  was  born  in  Cambridge 
in  1872.  Largely  educated  by  private  tutors,  she  was 
for  a  short  time  a  student  in  the  public  schools  and 
afterward  a  special  student  at  Radcliffe.  She  was  a 
child  exceedingly  fond  of  outdoor  life.  Although  she 
remembers  kind  and  patient  teachers  she  can  recall 
no  day  when  the  walls  of  a  schoolroom  did  not  fret 
and  torment  her  with  the  sense  of  physical  confine 
ment. 

"The  one  or  two  things  I  understood  at  all  I  learned 
so  quickly  that  it  drove  me  almost  crazy  waiting  for 
the  fifty  or  more  classmates  to  catch  up — and  the  great 
many  things  I  didn't  understand  I  was  too  frightened 
to  learn  in  such  a  crowd.  I  can't  look  upon  little, 
playful,  day-dreaming,  high-strung  children  shut  up 
in  an  ironbound  schoolroom  without  experiencing  a 
very  large  lump  in  my  throat." 

At  the  Harvard  grammar  school  in  Cambridge  her 
teachers  first  discovered  the  Abbott  talent  in  her  sur 
prising  fondness  for  English  composition,  a  subject 
net  customarily  dear  to  the  hearts  of  schoolchildren, 
and  in  her  rapturous  delight  in  reading  aloud  Wash 
ington  Irving's  Sketch  Book. 

"Certainly,"  says  Miss  Abbott,  "I  never  showed 
any  other  special  signs  of  intelligence,  being  always, 
I  remember,  at  the  extreme  foot  of  my  class  in  every 
subject  except  English.  Surely  nothing  but  my  fa- 


332  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

ther's  unfailing  sympathy  and  understanding  sus 
tained  either  me  or  my  teachers,  through  the  dreadful 
period  of  fractions  and  other  mathematical  horrors. 
And  it  was  here  at  this  school  that  I  formed  the  first 
intellectual  friendship  of  my  life  with  a  little,  fair- 
haired,  blue-eyed,  earnest-minded  boy  who  is  now 
Professor  Thomas  Whittemore,  of  Tufts  College. 
While  the  other  children  giggled  over  ink-dipped  pig 
tails,  wrote  facetious  notes  about  their  teachers,  and 
traded  postage  stamps,  we  two  were  whispering  about 
authors  and  exchanging  autographs  and  timidly  con 
fiding  literary  ambitions  to  each  other.  Funny  little 
people  we  must  have  been — astonishingly  solemn,  in 
ordinately  dignified  and  most  deliciously  important 
with  all  the  grave,  childish  self-consciousness  of  hav 
ing  already  fixed  our  minds  on  higher  things. 

"I  recall  one  day  when  we  were  swapping  a  Long 
fellow  check-stub  for  a  Whittier  post-card,  or  some 
thing  of  that  sort.  We  got  caught  at  it  and  were 
kept  ignominiously  after  school,  to  the  infinite  delight 
of  our  more  frivolous-minded  companions." 

Miss  Abbott's  husband,  Dr.  Fordyce  Coburn,  is  the 
"silent  partner"  in  her  work  to  whom  Molly  Make- 
Believe  is  dedicated.  He  aids  and  abets  her  in  her 
stories,  in  taking  a  course  in  playwriting  at  Harvard 
under  Professor  George  Baker,  in  anything  she  wants 
to  do.  Dr.  Coburn  is  medical  adviser  of  the  Lowell 
high  school  and  an  all-round  athlete  and  sportsman 
whenever  a  city  practice  will  release  him  sufficiently. 
He  and  Mrs.  Coburn  spend  their  spare  time  salmon 
fishing  in  Maine,  playing  tennis  at  Lowell,  coon  and 
wild  turkey  hunting  on  the  edge  of  the  Florida  ever- 


glades — doing  anything,  in  fact,  that  two  persons, 
husband  and  wife,  great  comrades  and  possessing* 
similar  tastes,  can  always  find  to  do  happily  together. 

BOOKS  BY  ELEANOR  HALLOWELL  ABBOTT 

Molly  Make-Believe,  1910. 
The  Sick-a-Bed  Lady,  1911. 
The  White-Linen  Nurse,  1913. 
The  Indiscreet  Letter,  1915. 
Little  Eve  Edgarton,  1915. 
The  Stingy  Receiver,  1917. 

.  Published  by  the  Century  Company,  New  York. 
The  Ne'er-Do-Much,  1918. 

Published  by  Dodd,  Mead  &  Company,  New  York. 
Old-Dad,  1919. 
Published  by  E.  P.  Button  &  Company,  New  York. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

HARRIET   T.    CGMSTOCK 

THE   significant  thing  about  Harriet  T.   Corn- 
stock  has  been  her  role  in  reprint. 
After  a  novel  has  met  the  demand  for  it 
in  the  regular  edition  the  plates   from  which  it  is 
printed  are  turned  over  to  Grosset  &  Dunlap  or  some 
other  publishing  house  which  issues  popular  books  in 
inexpensive  form.    The  show  has  left  Broadway  to  go 
on  "the  road."     And,  you  might  not  think  it,  but 
sometimes  the  worth  of  a  show  is  never  known  until 
it  hits  "the  road." 

The  worth  of  Mrs.  Comstock  was  never  known 
until  Joyce  of  the  North  Woods  went  into  reprint. 

The  book,  at  over  a  dollar,  had  had  a  "good,  aver 
age  sale" — is  10,000  copies  a  good  average  sale? 
Reader,  it  is.  Think  not  that  all  novels  are  best  sell 
ers.  That's  no  more  the  case  than  that  all  the  sellers 
are  the  best  novels. 

Joyce  went  into  reprint  and  in  three  months  sold 
60,000  copies  and  then  it  sold  and  sold  and  sold;  and 
so,  when  they  came  to  be  reprinted,  did  Janet  of  the 
Dimes  and  A  Son  of  the  Hills.  In  a  little  more  than 
three  years  these  three  novels  in  reprint  went  to  250,- 
ooo  copies.  Since  then  The  Place  Beyond  the  Winds 
and  later  books  have  been  put  out  by  the  reprinters.  Is 

334 


HARRIET  T.  COMSTOCK  335 

there  any  question  of  Mrs.  Comstock's  importance? 
We  think  not. 

But  what's  the  explanation  ?  What,  in  the  vernacu 
lar,  is  the  answer?  The  answer  is  just  this:  Mrs. 
Comstock  is  an  earnest,  sincere,  enthusiastic  writer; 
she  is  an  educated  woman,  a  suffragist,  with  experi 
ence  in  public  speaking  and  a  familiarity  with  public 
affairs ;  she  is  a  homemaker  who  has  always  made  the 
keeping  of  a  pleasant  home  in  Flatbush,  Brooklyn, 
her  chief  business  and  who  wrote  at  first  just  for  fun 
and  as  she  had  the  chance ;  she  has  convictions  and  no 
more  hesitates  to  act  upon  them  than  to  express  them ; 
she  is  personally  modest — you  have  to  dig  things  out 
of  her  about  herself.  But — is  this  the  answer?  Is 
there  something  else? 

Yes,  there  is  this  else.  Mrs.  Comstock  has  worked 
with  intensive  culture  and  a  visible  reward  the  pecu 
liarly  modern  literary  field  known  (it  really  isn't  so 
known  but  it  will  be)  as  idealism. 

What's  that?  There  are  realists  and  romanticists 
although  no  two  of  us  agree  as  to  what  makes  a  lit 
erary  realist,  what  a  romanticist.  Yet  we  all  recog 
nize  the  distinction.  It  is  a  sure  if  shadowy  bound 
ary.  But  a  literary  idealist? 

The  literary  idealist  is  the  product  of  everybody's 
dissatisfaction  with  what  the  other  two  give  us. 
Vexed  with  the  clash  of  the  allopath  and  the  homeo 
path,  some  send  for  the  osteopath.  The  figure  of 
speech  we  employ  is  no  offhand  metaphor.  Literary 
idealists  like  Mrs.  Comstock  are  a  kind  of  literary 
osteopaths.  They  go  at  us  vigorously.  They  decline 
to  dose  us  with  the  nauseous  compounds  of  realism 


336  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

and  they  shudder  at  the  thought  of  our  taking  sugar 
pellets  of  romance.  What  they  want  us  to  do  is  to 
let  them  rub,  thump,  pound  and  flex  us — mentally  and 
emotionally,  of  course.  They  say:  "Now,  see  here! 
Your  intellect  and  your  emotions  may  not  be  very 
wonderful  but  they  are  your  own.  Exercise  them! 
Rely  on  them!  Keep  well  and  happy  by  using  them 
to  the  fullest  extent!  They  are  what  the  Lord  gave 
you.  Don't  try  to  refine  them  till  they  become  flabby. 
Don't  use  them  brutally  till  they  go  to  pieces.  Rec 
ognize  your  limitations  and  you'll  be  all  right!" 

That's  Mrs.  Comstock's  secret,  whether  she  would 
put  it  that  way  herself  or  not.  She  is  not  a  "great" 
novelist  in  the  usual  acceptation  of  the  word;  she  is, 
in  respect  of  literary  distinction,  not  even  a  good  nov 
elist.  Aesthetically  considered  she  is  nowhere.  Prac 
tically  considered  she  is  in  a  hundred  thousand  homes, 
entertaining  people,  instructing  people,  osteopathiz- 
ing,  making  them  use  the  brains  and  feelings  they 
have,  preventing  them  from  aping  something  they 
have  not  and  cannot  acquire,  killing  snobbery  at  the 
roots,  arresting  the  blight  of  disillusionment  and  con 
vincing  young  and  old  that  certain  simple,  funda 
mental  instincts  and  certain  simple,  fundamental  prin 
ciples  of  character  are  what  count — with  them.  She 
is  right,  they  do. 

Conviction  about  the  truth  of  life,  conviction  as  to 
the  best  use  of  the  novel,  namely,  "to  present  the  great 
truths  of  life  in  an  attractive  manner,  where  they  will 
reach  the  greatest  number  of  people" — this  sums  up 
Harriet  T.  Comstock.  How  did  she  come  to  write 
The  Place  Beyond  the  Winds  which  presents  the  ques- 


HARRIET  T.  COMSTOCK  337 

tion  of  eugenics  and  the  ethics  of  silence  on  certain 
matters  affecting  marriage?  Mrs.  Comstock's  face 
saddens  and  she  tells  you: 

"I  had  a  most  unpleasant  experience  once.  I  hap 
pened  to  learn  that  the  very  attractive  son  of  a  dear 
friend  of  mine  was  totally  unfit  to  marry  the.  girl  to 
whom  he  was  engaged.  I  approached  the  young  man, 
but  found  him  obdurate;  so,  after  a  long  mental  and 
spiritual  struggle,  I  revealed  the  facts  to  the  girl's 
mother. 

"It  was  the  most  trying  experience  of  my  life.  Then 
the  feeling  came  to  me  that  I  must  write  about  it — 
must  do  my  small  part  toward  banishing  the  evil." 

Exactly!  There  you  have  the  idealist  in  action  as 
well  as  in  literature.  It  is  perfectly  plain  what  some 
people  will  think  of  Mrs.  Comstock's  course;  it  is 
equally  plain  that  hundreds  of  thousands  will  approve 
it.  Do  her  the  fine  justice  to  acknowledge  that  what 
ever  any  one  thought  of  it,  that  even  if  every  one  else 
in  the  world  condemned  her,  she  would  have  done  as 
she  did. 

She  has,  in  a  showdown,  absolute  and  unlimited 
courage.  Then  and  then  only  is  her  rooted  modesty 
and  her  equally  rooted  humor  put  aside.  As  for  the 
humor  that  is  hers,  it  comes  out  fully  in  the  narrative 
of  her  experiences  campaigning  for  suffrage.  As  she 
once  wrote: 

"And  then  the  anti  who  became  converted  and  in 
a  burst  of  gratitude  sent  me  a  bottle  of  Benedictine ! 

"Maybe  she  felt  as  the  young  girl  at  a  revival  once 
felt  who  electrified  the  congregation  by  shouting : 


338  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

"  'Good  Lord !  My  jewelry  is  dragging  me  down  to 
hell — I  am  going  to  give  it  to  my  sister !' ' 

Go  out  to  Flatbush,  as  Alice  Lawton  did  one  sun 
shiny  afternoon,  afterward  relating  her  experience  in 
the  Book  News  Monthly;  travel  along  a  "broad,  tree- 
shaded  street  between  rows  of  real  homes  with  full 
complement  of  flower  gardens  and  babies  and  puppies; 
stop  at  a  pretty,  wide-verandaed,  white-pillared  house 
and  call  upon  Mrs.  Comstock,  wife,  mother,  home- 
maker,  novelist — a  Jill  of  many  trades  and  success 
ful  at  them  all!" 

She  seats  you  in  a  "cozy,  brown-walled  drawing- 
room,  beside  a  little  round  table."  You  eat  "piping 
hot  buttered  toast  and  crisp  jumbles,  and  drink  prop 
erly-brewed  tea.  Sonny  comes  strolling  in,  a  large, 
beautifully-marked  Burne-Jonesy  yellow  cat,"  a  Per 
sian.  The  creature  is  polite  but  heads  for  a  little  ma 
hogany  desk  and  sniffs  at  the  single  drawer.  It  con 
tains  his  catnip. 

The  hostess  is  the  sort  of  woman  you  make  confi 
dences  to.  Mrs.  Comstock  is  cheerful,  "has  smiling 
eyes,  a  loving-toned  voice,  curly  gray  hair,  wears 
pretty  clothes  and  almost  always  flowers.  One  feels 
a  hearty  welcome  even  when  one  telephones  her.  She 
never  sounds  annoyed,  nor  even  interrupted." 

Upstairs  there's  a  bright  little  room  where  she 
works.  Couch  in  one  corner,  built-in  bookcase  in  an 
other,  big  desk  in  the  middle.  The  desk  is  heaped 
with  piles  of  closely-written  paper  and  books.  On  the 
soft  buff  paper  of  the  walls  are  paintings,  drawings, 
photographs — the  originals  of  illustrations  to  Mrs. 
Comstock's  books  are  noticeable.  Here  she  writes 


HARRIET  T.  COMSTOCK  339 

most  of  each  novel,  subjected  to  endless  interruptions 
— friends  and  neighbors  of  a  novelist  never  take  the 
novelist's  work  seriously.  When  the  finishing  chap 
ters  are  to  be  done  Mrs.  Comstock  packs  manuscript, 
pencils  and  paper  and  goes  away.  Her  publishers  and 
her  husband  have  the  address — no  one  else.  She  is 
one  of  the  extremely  few  novelists  who  do  not  use  a 
typewriter — she  writes  it  all  out  longhand  and  makes 
several  copies  before  she  gets  through.  She  began  by 
writing  stories  for  the  school  paper,  she  continued  by 
writing  children's  stories,  then  books  for  older  girls 
and  boys.  Janet  of  the  Dunes  was  her  first  novel. 

Thomas  Hardy  is  her  favorite  author.  "Whenever 
I  feel  that  I  am  stranded  I  read  Hardy  and  regain  my 
poise.  He  discusses  so  clearly  and  nobly  the  prob 
lems  with  which  we  are  struggling  to-day.  And  I 
also  like  Barrie ;  principally,  I  think,  because  he  knows 
women  so  thoroughly,  and  I  always  know  he  knows. 
Stevenson  once  said  of  George  Eliot  that  when  she 
wrote  of  men  they  always  put  their  hands  up  to  feel 
if  their  hair  is  coming  down;  but  Barrie  writes  of 
women  without  their  appearing  with  a  cigar  in  their 
hands." 

Of  her  method  of  work  Mrs.  Comstock  says: 
"The  first  thing  I  see  is  the  place  and  the  people — 
the  background  and  the  actors.  Then  their  story  be 
gins  to  unfold  in  my  mind.  When  the  time  comes 
that  that  story  must  be  written  before  I  can  have  any 
peace  of  mind,  I  sit  down  to  it — not  before.  Other 
writers,  I  understand,  usually  see  the  story  or  the 
people  first,  and  the  background  later.  With  me,  the 
background,  the  environment  of  my  characters,  is 


340  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

all-important.  Why,  I  even  keep  a  set  of  pictures 
of  the  country  I  am  writing  of  on  my  desk  beside  me." 

Mrs.  Comstock  always  goes  to  the  scene  of  her 
stories.  Her  backgrounds  are  always  of  actual  places 
and  her  people  are  frequently  real  people.  Thus  in 
Joyce  of  the  North  Woods  her  St.  Ange  is  a  place  in 
northern  New  York  and  all  the  lesser  characters  are 
taken  from  life.  In  The  Vindication,  Dr.  Hill  is 
straight  out  of  actuality.  On  a  suffrage  tour  Mrs. 
Comstock  met  this  young  physician  whose  work  had 
been  so  largely  among  the  Adirondack  poor.  He,  too, 
had  adopted  a  backward  and  neglected  child,  just  as 
Dr.  Hill  takes  hold  of  the  boy  Chester  in  Mrs.  Com- 
stock's  novel.  A'  Son  of  the  Hills  was  the  fruit  of  a 
visit  in  the  Virginia  mountains.  Not  the  immediate 
fruit;  some  time  had  to  elapse  before  Mrs.  Comstock 
could  "see"  the  story  in  the  mountaineers.  In  Mam'selle 
Jo,  Mrs.  Comstock  has  gone  up  North  again,  to  the 
St.  Lawrence  country,  and  she  tells  the  moving  story 
of  a  woman  of  40  who  has  at  last  struggled  clear  of 
debt  and  is  at  last  able  to  gratify  the  instinct  of  moth 
er-love  which  is  in  her. 

Popular  she  is,  but  she  does  not  think  of  popular 
ity.  In  truth  a  writer  cannot.  For,  as  Mrs.  Com 
stock  says,  the  writer  who  thinks  of  the  possible  popu 
larity  of  her  work  when  she  should  be  thinking  of  her 
story  will  impair  her  work.  And  her  work  is  the 
thing  with  Mrs.  Comstock.  Reject  it  if  you  like,  ac 
cept  it  if  you  will;  she  will  go  unshakeably  on.  She 
has  something  to  do  and  is  about  doing  it. 


HARRIET  T.  COMSTOCK  341 

BOOKS  BY  HARRIET  T.  COMSTOCK 

Janet  of  the  Dunes,  1908. 
Joyce  of  the  North  Woods,  1911. 
A  Son  of  the  Hills,  1913. 
The  Place  Beyond,  the  Winds,  1914. 
The  Vindication,  1917. 

Mam'selle  Jo:  A  Novel  of  the  St.  Lawrence  Coun 
try,  1918. 

(Also  many  books  for  boys  and  girls.) 

Mrs.  Comstock's  earlier  books  are  to  be  had  in  re 
print.  Janet  of  the  Dunes  was  published  by  Little, 
Brown  &  Company,  Boston;  the  others  are  published 
by  Doubleday,  Page  &  Company,  New  York. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

HONORE   WILLSIE 

NOTHING  is  so  satisfactory  to  write  about  as 
a  novelist  with  ideas;  but  in  writing  about 
Mrs.  Honore  Willsie  we  shall  not  discuss  her 
ideas.  It  will  be  enough  to  try  faithfully  to  set  them 
before  her  thousands  of  readers  and  the  thousands 
who  ought  to  be  her  readers,  to  try  to  picture  Mrs. 
Willsie  herself.  That  is  all  that  can  be  done  in  a 
chapter  of  reasonable  length.  To  discuss  intelligently 
Mrs.  Willsie's  ideas  would  require  a  book  and  an 
amount  of  exact  knowledge  on  certain  subjects — im 
migration  and  Americanization,  for  example — that  is 
no  part  of  our  reporter's  equipment.  A  straightaway 
bit  of  exposition  must  do  instead. 

The  spring  of  1919  will  see  the  publication  of  a 
new  novel  by  Mrs.  Willsie,  The  Forbidden  Trail,  an 
exciting  story  of  the  Still  Jim  country,  Arizona  and 
the  irrigable  West.  The  novel  deals  with  the  clever 
efforts  of  German  spies  and  sympathizers  to  appro 
priate  for  Germany  the  discoveries  and  improvements 
made  by  the  sturdy  Americans  of  our  United  States 
Reclamation  Service.  This  theme  is  not  so  completely 
derived  from  the  war  as  might  appear  at  first  glance. 
Readers  of  Still  Jim  will  recall  in  the  closing  chapters 
the  visit  of  Herr  Gluck  to  the  Cabillo  dam  and  his 

342 


HONORE  WILLSIE  343 

effort  to  get  Jim  Manning  to  enter  the  service  of  the 
German  Government — in  a  legitimate  way,  however. 
Of  the  illegitimate  ways  in  which  Germany  was  then 
working  among  American  engineers  Mrs.  Willsie  is 
now  free  to  speak  and  may  be  trusted  to  speak  out  of 
an  exact  knowledge.  For  her  husband,  Henry  Elmer 
Willsie,  of  New  York,  was  an  inventor  and  consult 
ing  engineer  when  she  was  married  to  him  and  with 
him  she  spent  two  ytars  in  the  deserts  of  Arizona. 

Honore  Willsie  was  born  in  Ottumwa,  Iowa,  the 
daughter  of  William  Dunbar  McCue  and  Lilly  Bryant 
(Head)  McCue  and  a  descendant  of  old  New  Eng- 
landers  who  went  West,  the  people  who  form  the  im 
portant  background  of  Still  Jim  and  Lydia  of  the 
Pines.  She  is  a  Bachelor  of  Arts  of  the  University 
of  Wisconsin  and  was  married  soon  after  her  gradu 
ation.  The  two  years  in  the  West  followed  and  then 
the  husband  and  wife  came  to  New  York  where  Mrs. 
Willsie  devoted  herself  to  the  task  of  winning  recog 
nition  as  a  writer.  She  says  now: 

"A  plan,  and  always  keeping  your  eye  on  what  you 
want  to  be  doing  in  three  years  or  in  five  years — that 
is  what  makes  for  success  for  a  writer. 

"I  came  to  New  York  with  the  intention  of  being 
a  writer.  I  did  not  want  to  work  on  a  magazine  or  a 
newspaper.  And  I  wanted  to  write  what  I  wanted  to 
write. 

"I  had  sold  Bob  Davis  [Robert  H.  Davis,  editor 
of  Munsey's  Magazine}  a  little  love  story  called  Bea 
trice  and  the  Rose.  So  after  a  few  weeks  in  New 
York  I  went  to  see  him  with  a  bundle  of  stories  I 


344  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

wanted  him  to  buy.  He  looked  them  over  and  shook 
his  head. 

"  'Do  me  something  else  like  Beatrice  and  the  Rose 
and  I'll  take  it,'  he  said. 

"  'I  don't  want  to  go  on  writing  stuff  like  that,'  I 
explained.  'If  that's  the  best  I  can  do  I'll  give  up 
writing  altogether.' 

"  'But  nobody  wants  to  read  about  those  deserts 
and  glowing  sunsets.  There  is  only  one  man  in  New 
York  who  will  read  about  deserts — Theodore  Dreiser.' 

"  'All  right,'  I  decided.  'I  will  go  to  see  Theodore 
Dreiser.' 

"I  sent  my  stuff  to  Mr.  Dreiser  in  advance  and  next 
day  I  went  down  to  see  what  he  thought  of  it.  I  was 
pretty  well  scared.  I  walked  around  the  Butterick 
Building — four  times  I  walked  around  that  bulky  flat- 
iron  before  I  screwed  up  enough  courage  to  go  in. 
When  I  finally  got  inside  and  was  ushered  into  Mr. 
Dreiser's  office  [the  novelist  was  then  editor  of  the 
Delineator,  a  job  Mrs.  Willsie  now  holds]  I  was 
tongue-tied  with  nervousness.  That  nervousness 
might  well  have  been  prophetic.  The  interview  turned 
out  to  be  a  momentous  one  for  me. 

"  'My  God !'  said  Mr.  Dreiser,  looking  me  over, 
'Another  infant  come  to  New  York  to  reform  it.'  But 
after  a  little  talk  he  offered  me  a  job,  editorial  work 
at  a  good  salary. 

"  Til  have  to  think  that  over/  I  said,  the  tempta 
tion  of  a  good  regular  salary  struggling  against  my 
plans  for  writing,  and  writing  only. 

"  'No,'  Mr.  Dreiser  ordered.  'You  sit  right  there 
and  decide  now.' 


HONORE  WILLSIE  345 

"So  I  sat  there  and  thought  about  it  and  finally  I 
told  him  that  I  wouldn't  take  his  job.  I  had  stuck 
out  this  far  and  I  guessed  I  could  go  on. 

"  'All  right/  Mr.  Dreiser  agreed  without  argument. 
'Stick  it  out  at  the  writing  game  if  you  want  to.  It 
won't  be  easy,  but  you  will  make  good.  You  will 
have  a  hard  time  at  first,  and  you  will  need  pluck. 
But  in  five  years  you  will  land  and  land  big.  As  for 
these  stories  of  yours,  I  will  buy  them.'  And  he 
named  a  sum  staggering  to  my  inexperience,  though 
he  assured  me  he  was  taking  advantage  of  me  be 
cause  I  was  unknown. 

"Well,  I  kept  on  writing.  I  bought  a  second-hand 
typewriter  and  worked  it  with  two  fingers  and  many 
times  I  thought  of  the  salary  I  might  have  had  coming 
in  every  week.  As  Mr.  Dreiser  said,  it  wasn't  easy. 
I  made  $500  that  first  year.  Things  came  out  my 
way  because  I  stuck  to  my  plan  and  always  kept  my 
eye  on  the  future — and  had  the  courage  to  refuse 
that  job." 

Not  long  afterward  Mrs.  Willsie's  stories  began  to 
appear  in  the  magazines  and  were  unusually  popular. 
She  took  up  the  writing  of  special  articles  for  such 
periodicals  as  Harper's  Weekly  and  Collier's  on  im 
portant  subjects — immigration,  divorce,  Indians,  the 
United  States  Reclamation  Service.  Norman  Hap- 
good,  who  was  then  editor  of  Harper's  Weekly,  said 
of  her  work :  "She  has  the  ability  to  get  at  the  essen 
tials  of  a  big  question,  and  put  it  in  simple,  human 
terms." 

Mrs.  Willsie's  first  published  novel  was  The  Heart 
of  the  Desert,  which  came  out  in  1913.  It  won  imme- 


346  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

diate  recognition  for  her.  Richard  Le  Gallienne, 
writing  an  appreciation  of  Mrs.  Willsie  in  the  Book 
News  Monthly  of  March,  1917,  said: 

"As  a  boy,  of  course,  I  adored  the  American  In 
dian  of  Fenimore  Cooper,  but,  since  then,  words  fail. 
If  I  have  a  bete  noire  in  fiction,  nowadays,  it  is  the 
American  Indian.  I  mention  this  purely  personal  pe 
culiarity,  merely  to  emphasize  the  delight  which  I  took 
in  Mrs.  Willsie' s  hero  in  The  Heart  of  the  Desert — 
and  his  truly  heroic  wooing  and  winning  of  a  white 
girl,  with  Mrs.  Willsie's,  and,  I  am  sure,  all  her 
readers'  concurrence.  Never  was  such  a  masterful 
wooing,  or  one  brought  to  winning  through  such 
heart-beating  suspense,  such  a  grim  passionate  race 
for  love  and  life  in  so  wild  and  star-lit  and  infinite  a 
setting." 

And  he  says  that  therefore  "when  I  say  that,  in 
my  opinion,  The  Heart  of  the  Desert  is  one  of  the 
best  'yarns,'  and,  if  I  may  say  so,  one  of  the  most 
virile  love  stories  written  in  our  time,  it  is  not  from 
any  prejudice  in  favor  of  its  subject  matter." 

Mr.  Le  Gallienne's  article  is  not  long.  We  take  the 
liberty  to  quote  the  rest  of  it  from  a  booklet  on  Mrs. 
Willsie  prepared  by  the  Frederick  A.  Stokes  Com 
pany,  her  publishers.  This  booklet  also  contains  an 
interesting  article  by  Hildegarde  Hawthorne  on  Mrs. 
Willsie  and  her  novels.  Says  Mr.  Le  Gallienne : 

"My  first  acquaintance  with  Mrs.  Honore  Willsie's 
books  came  through  a  photograph  of  her  looks.  The 
photograph,  or  photographs,  to  which  I  have  refer 
ence  occurred  in  a  copy  of  Harper's  Weekly,  not  so 
very  long  before  that  honored  periodical  was  gath- 


HONORE  WILLSIE  347 

ered  to  its  fathers.  They  were  taken  by  her  husband, 
and  represented  Mrs.  Willsie  in  the  heart  of  the  Ari 
zona  Desert;  dizzily  seated  at  the  edge  of  a  canyon; 
in  camp  democratically  at  dinner,  with  a  stunning  hat 
and  a  still  more  stunning  smile,  and  so  on.  Here,  one 
said,  was  the  veritable  'Girl  of  the  Golden  West,'  tall 
and  fearless-eyed  as  Artemis;  something  like  a  sym 
bolic  figure  of  that  noble  type  of  Western  woman, 
which  accounts  so  largely  for  the  proverbial  chivalry 
— and  homicides — of  that  portion  of  America  which 
is  at  once  most  romantic  and  most  real.  One  of  these, 
particularly,  haunted  me,  and  with  my  subsequent  ac 
quaintance  with  Mrs.  Willsie's  writings  in  mind,  I 
must  be  forgiven  one  more  use  of  the  word  'symbolic' 
— Mrs.  Willsie  is  seated  in  the  foreground,  a  wilder 
ness  of  sagebrush  all  about  her,  and  a  lonely  stretch 
of  barren  mountain  in  the  near  background.  Her 
head,  of  which  you  only  see  the  massive  coiled  hair, 
is  bent  in  an  attitude,  as  of  sorrow,  close  over  her 
knees,  from  which  her  right  hand  hangs  listlessly, 
almost  touching  the  cowboy  hat  at  her  feet.  'The 
close  of  a  long  day,'  is  the  caption  of  the  picture.  In 
the  light  of  Mrs.  Willsie's  books,  that  photograph  has 
come  to  me  to  represent  the  attitude  of  her  soul,  the 
soul  of  a  young  American  woman,  to  whom  the  ideal 
ism  that  made  her  country  is  a  religion,  in  one  of  those 
moods  of  dejection  which  occasionally  overcome  all 
of  us  who  love  this  great  Republic,  at  what  too  fre 
quently  seems  like  an  eclipse,  or  even  a  decadence,  of 
that  idealism.  As  she  sits  there  with  bended  head, 
like  some  heroic  weeper,  in  that  austere  wilderness, 
her  attitude  seems  to  be  saying  what  Lydia  says  so 


348  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

finally  in  her  inspiring  new  book,  Lydia  of  the  Pines: 
"  'We've  got  too  many  lawyers  in  America.  What 
I  think  America  needs  is  real  love  of  America.  And 
it  seems  to  me  the  best  way  to  get  it  is  to  identify  one 
self  with  the  actual  soil  of  the  community.  What  I 
want  is  this :  That  you  and  I,  upon  the  ground  where 
poor  John  Levine  did  such  wrongs,  will  build  us  a 
home.  I  don't  mean  a  home  as  Americans  usually 
mean  the  word,  I  mean  we'll  try  to  found  a  family 
there.  We'll  send  the  roots  of  our  roof-tree  so  deep 
into  the  ground  that  for  generations  to  come  our 
children's  children  will  be  found  there  and  our  fam 
ily  name  will  stand  for  old  American  ideals  in  the 
community.  I  don't  see  how  else  we  Americans  can 
make  up  to  the  world  for  the  way  we've  exploited 
America.' 

"After  looking  at  Mr.  Willsie's  photographs,  I 
chanced  to  be  walking  along  Fifth  Avenue,  and  glanc 
ing  into  a  bookseller's  windows,  I  beheld  one  of  those 
pyramidal  displays  of  a  new  book  which  I  have  some 
times  thought  must  have  exhausted  the  whole  edition. 
The  name  of  the  book  was  Still  Jim.  It  was  by  the 
lady  of  Mr.  Willsie's  beautiful  photographs — and  it 
was  a  real  best  seller,  said  the  bookseller,  to  whom  I 
disbursed  the  needed  dollar  and  whatever  it  was.  No 
young  writer  could  hope  to  live  up  to  Mr.  Willsie's 
photographs,  but  I  was  happily  astonished  to  find  how 
near  Mrs.  Willsie  came  to  doing  it.  Apart  from 
the  book  as  a  story,  its  quality  of  atmosphere,  its 
breath  of  vast  spaces,  its  sense  of  heroic  action  on  a 
great  stage,  were  remarkable.  There  was,  too,  that 
background  o'f  'character'  to  the  writing  in  which  the 


HONORE  WILLSIE  349 

life  of  a  book  mainly  resides,  and  for  lack  of  which 
so  many  clever  books  come  and  go,  perishing  like  the 
summer  skies. 

"Lydia  of  the  Pines  [we  have  already  quoted  Mr. 
Le  Gallienne's  words  on  The  Heart  of  the  Desert] 
combines  all  Mrs.  Willsie's  qualities  and  character 
istics  in  a  maturing  ratio.  The  book  shows  her  as 
growing  nearer  and  nearer  to  that  symbolic  photo 
graph  of  her.  More  and  more  she  is  seen  as  the  pas 
sionate  dreamer  of  the  true  American  ideal,  a  prac 
tical  dreamer,  too,  not  afraid  to  arraign  America  to 
her  face  for  wrong  done  in  the  past,  and  wrongs  still 
a-doing.  The  theme  of  Lydia  of  the  Pines  is  one  of 
the  noblest  she  could  have  chosen — the  infamy  of 
political  corruption  that  is  so  subtly  and  cruelly  doing 
the  last  wrong  to  the  Indian  by  the  legalized  theft 
of  his  pitiful  'reservations.' 

"  'Where  the  pine-forest  is  destroyed,  the  pines 
never  come  again,' — such  is  the  burden  of  this  noble 
and  very  moving  story  of  a  high-souled  but  most 
human  girl,  whose  family  and  friends  are  implicated 
in  'real  estate'  deals  with  Indians  of  a  nearby  reser 
vation.  It  is  a  simple  story  too,  moving  among  sim 
ple  lives,  in  a  simple  Western  milieu  which  Mrs.  Will- 
sie  presents  with  great  fidelity,  with  many  touches  of 
humor  and  pathos. 

"In  Lydia  of  the  Pines  one  sees  Mrs.  Willsie  grow 
ing  in  strength,  more  surely  becoming  one  of  the  au 
thentic  voices  of  the  nobler  Americanism,  and  her 
book  is  sure  of  a  huge  welcome  by  those  who  have 
that  at  heart." 

With  equal  enthusiasm  Hildegarde  Hawthorne  de- 


clares  that  Lydia  of  the  Pines  "is  the  best  thing  Mrs. 
Willsie  has  yet  done."  The  author  of  this  volume  has 
endeavored  generally  to  be  reticent  in  the  expression 
of  personal  preferences.  He  will  only  say  that  he  does 
not  agree  with  Miss  Hawthorne  about  Lydia.  He 
found  it  fearfully  dull  while  fully  conceding  the  in 
terest  of  the  ideas  which  Mrs.  Willsie  never  fails  to 
present  for  her  readers'  contemplation.  He  admired 
the  portrait  of  John  Levine  but  deplored  what  he  felt 
to  be  its  lack  of  solidity.  The  reader  sees  Levine 
in  two  relations  only — to  Lydia  and  to  the  Indians, 
and  unfortunately  his  relations  to  the  Indians  are 
mostly  a  matter  of  hearsay,  what  came  to  Lydia's 
ears,  no  more.  To  this  writer  Still  Jim  seems  by  far 
the  better  book. 

But  Miss  Hawthorne  is  thoroughly  right  when  she 
says: 

"No  one  who  reads  Mrs.  Willsie's  books  can  fail 
to  be  deeply  interested  in  seeing  how  the  writer  grasps 
and  lays  before  her  public  certain  big  problems  con 
fronting  us,  such  as  this  of  the  downfall  of  the  early 
traditions,  the  influx  of  races  that  have  not  our  con 
ception  of  government  or  of  life,  and  now  the  Indian 
problem.  In  Lydia  of  the  Pines  the  shameful  story 
of  our  treatment  of  the  red  man  is  illuminatingly  told. 
It  is  told  with  measure  and  good  sense,  and  is  con 
cretely  pictured,  the  facts  concerning  one  Reservation 
supplying  the  material.  Those  who  wish  to  ascer 
tain  how  closely  Mrs.  Willsie  sticks  to  facts  need  only 
hunt  up  the  reports  of  the  Board  of  Indian  Commis 
sioners  in  regard  to  the  White  Earth  Reservation  in 
Minnesota  to  find  out.  The  whole  story  is  there,  told 


HONORE  WILLSIE  351 

over  and  over  again  with  endless,  pitiful  detail.  In 
her  novel  Mrs.  Willsie  has  drawn  intelligently  upon 
that  mass  of  testimony,  handled  it  with  a  full  realiza 
tion  of  its  drama,  and  also  with  a  peculiarly  broad 
understanding  of  both  sides." 

Gertrude  Atherton  says:  "I  think  Lydm  of  the 
Pines  is  an  American  classic."  Margaret  Deland 
wrote  to  Mrs.  Willsie  concerning  Still  Jim: 

"All  the  book  is  American  to  the  roots — but  big 
Jim  is  the  American  soul.  It  is  too  massive  a  book 
to  write  about  in  detail; — it's  the  whole  effect  that 
moves  me :  truth,  beauty  and  democracy.  A  fine  piece 
of  work — an  honest  heart  behind  it.  I  congratulate 
you." 

The  element  of  mysticism  in  Mrs.  Willsie  finds  its 
outlet  in  the  two  and  three  line  reveries  which  she 
puts  at  the  head  of  her  chapters.  Thus  in  Still  Jim  a 
desert  rock  muses: 

"Humans  constantly  shift  sand  and  rock  from  place 
to  place.  They  call  this  work.  I  have  seen  time  re 
turn  their  every  work  to  the  form  in  which  it  was 
created." 

"Coyotes  hunt  weaker  things.  Humans  hunt  all 
things,  even  each  other,  which  the  coyote  will  not  do." 

In  Lydia  of  the  Pines  it  is  a  pine  tree  which  mur 
murs: 

"The  young  pine  knows  the  secrets  of  the  ground. 
The  old  pine  knows  the  stars." 

"Nature  is  neither  cruel  nor  sad.  She  is  only  pur 
poseful,  tending  to  an  end  we  cannot  see." 

There  should  be  mention  of  Mrs.  Willsie's  most  re 
cent  book,  Benefits  Forgot:  A  Study  of  Lincoln  and 


352  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

Mother  Love.  This  is  a  brief  but  true  story  of  a 
young  army  surgeon  for  whose  education  his  mother 
had  made  great  sacrifices.  Mrs.  Willsie  tells  how 
President  Lincoln  learned  of  the  young  man's  neg 
lect  of  his  mother  and  brought  him  to  realize  his  in 
gratitude.  It  is  a  very  fine  and  very  touching  little 
story. 

Has  the  war  changed  Mrs.  Willsie's  ideas  and 
ideals?  No,  it  has  sustained  and  strengthened  them; 
it  has  supplied  her  with  evidence  in  their  support  and 
justification  in  their  advancement.  We  quote  an  in 
terview  with  the  novelist  by  Maxwell  Aley: 

"War  time  (Mrs.  Willsie  said)  is  woman's  time  to 
show  the  stuff  she  is  made  of.  This  war  is  going  to 
take  the  'fluff  out  of  feminism  in  America  just  as  it 
did  in  England.  It's" — hesitation  and  a  twinkling 
eye — "it's  going  to  blow  the  foam  off  the  feminist 
beer!  [A  good  figure,  that,  for  feminism  has  cer 
tainly  been  something  yeasty,  something  brewing,  and 
with  a  little  hop  in  it!]  "I  hope  the  war  is  going  to 
make  American  women  realize  the  importance  of  be 
ing  women,  and  the  chance  that  it  gives  them  to  mold 
the  coming  generation. 

"As  I  see  it  there  are  two  things  American  women 
can  do — one  abstract  and  one  concrete.  They  can 
teach  children  in  this  time  of  national  stress  what  it 
means  to  be  Americans,  and  in  that  way  form  the 
Americans  of  the  future;  and  they  can  mobilize  their 
resources  and  offer  them  to  the  government.  Like  all 
abstract  things,  the  first  is  the  more  difficult. 

"Women  have  got  to  get  down  from  pink  teas  to 
brass  tacks!  If  the  average  woman  would  only  stop 


HONORE  .WILLSIE  353 

to  realize  just  how  important  it  is  to  be  a  woman! 
Why,  woman's  business  is  not  only  the  bringing  into 
the  world  of  the  coming  generation,  but  the  molding 
of  that  generation's  ideals.  American  men  are  too 
busy  making  a  living  to  give  much  time  to  the  chil 
dren — it's  the  women  who  teach  them  at  home  and  at 
school.  And  they  ought  to  be  taught  what  it  means 
to  be  Americans  as  well  as  being  taught  religion  and 
morals,  or  grammar  and  geography. 

"But  here's  the  rub !  To  teach  children  that,  a  wom 
an  has  got  to  realize  what  it  means  herself.  How 
many  do  ? 

"I  hope  more  women  realize  it  than  men — that  is, 
than  the  men  I've  asked.  Several  years  ago  I  started 
out  asking  all  sorts  of  men  'What  is  an  American?' 
I  asked  'Bohunks'  and  'Guineas'  at  work  on  street 
construction,  I  asked  American  men  in  every  walk 
in  life — and  what  do  you  suppose  I  got  as  an  average 
answer?  That  an  American  was  a  man  who  knew 
how  to  get  rich  quick! 

"This  war  has  shown  us  that  taking  out  naturaliza 
tion  papers,  or  even  being  born  here,  doesn't  neces 
sarily  make  an  American.  We've  found  out  that  the 
melting  pot  doesn't  always  melt.  To  be  an  American 
you  must  have  a  certain  philosophy  of  government, 
and  only  a  thoughtful  person  can  have  a  philosophy 
at  all.  If  you  are  going  to  be  a  true  American,  you've 
got  to  think  things  out!  You've  got  to  come  to  an 
understanding  of  the  big  ideals  on  which  the  men 
who  founded  this  country  built. 

"Every  American  who  does  that  develops  a  para 
dox.  He  finds  first  that  he  has  a  sense  of  freedom 


354  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

and  equality,  and  then  he  arrives  at  a  feeling  of  re 
sponsibility.  That  latter  feeling  has  been  very  evi 
dent  among  thinking  Americans  since  the  beginning 
of  the  European  war,  and  it  is  particularly  evident 
now. 

"It's  up  to  American  women,  then,  to  think  out 
what  it  means  to  be  Americans  before  they  attempt  to 
teach  their  children — or  some  one  else's  children — 
what  it  means.  I  wish  that  we  might  have  an  Amer 
ican  litany — a  national  creed  that  mothers  and  teach 
ers  could  give  to  our  children!  I  wish  that  every 
American  child  might  be  brought  to  understand  the 
state  of  mind  of  the  men  who  wrote  and  signed  our 
Declaration  of  Independence — a  state  of  mind  com 
pounded  of  utter  bravery,  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice, 
and  a  devotion  to  cause  and  country  that  made  them 
literally  offer  up  their  'lives,  their  fortunes  and  their 
sacred  honor.' 

"Now  do  you  see  why  I  said  the  abstract  thing 
women  have  a  chance  to  do  is  the  hard  thing?  But  if 
it  is  the  more  difficult,  I  believe  it  is  also  the  more 
important. 

"As  for  the  concrete  thing,  that  is  already  being 
done  to  a  certain  extent.  Women  have  begun  offering 
their  services  to  the  government  through  their  various 
organizations,  but  they  ought  to  do  it  more  completely. 
If  we  are  to  have  universal  service  for  men,  we  ought 
to  have  a  variety  of  universal  service  for  women — at 
least  a  mobilization  of  the  resources  of  all  the  women 
in  the  country.  I  believe  that  women  here  in  America 
will  get  the  vote  out  of  this  war  as  women  are  getting 
it  in  England,  but  American  women  will  have  to  show, 


HONORE  WILLSIE  355 

as  English  women  have  done,  that  they  are  worthy 
of  the  vote. 

"And  there  is  one  thing  American  women  must  not 
forget — that  the  most  important  thing  they  can  mo 
bilize  is  their  sex.  When  the  men  of  a  country  give 
their  bodies  to  the  sword,  the  women  must  give  theirs 
to  the  future — to  the  generation  to  come.  Now,  more 
than  in  peace  times,  women  owe  it  to  their  country  to 
bear  children,  and  bear  them  intelligently.  And  when 
they  have  borne  them,  it  is  their  sacred  duty  to  bring 
them  up  Americans  in  a  full  understanding  of  the 
ideals  on  which  our  fathers  built  the  nation." 

Living  in  New  York,  writing  in  New  York,  work 
ing  in  New  York  as  the  managing  editor  of  the  De 
lineator,  Mrs.  Willsie  is  still  and  essentially  the  wom 
an  of  Mr.  Willsie's  photographs  which  made  so  forci 
ble  an  impression  on  Mr.  Le  Gallienne.  With  her  is 
always  a  splendid  vision:  "Exquisite  violet  mists 
rolled  back  toward  the  mountains.  The  pungent  odor 
of  sagebrush  floated  through  the  tent.  Iridescent, 
be  jeweled,  flashing  every  rainbow  tint  from  its  moist 
ened  breast,  the  desert  smiled  at  us.  Once  more  I 
yielded  to  its  loveliness."  To  her  and  her  vision 
many,  many  of  her  countrymen  and  countrywomen 
will  always  yield  gratefully  and  with  pleasure. 

BOOKS  BY  HONORE  WILLSIE 

The  Heart  of  the  Desert,  1913. 

Still  Jim,  1915. 

Lydia  of  the  Pines,  1917. 


Benefits  Forgot,  1917. 
The  Forbidden  Trail,  1919. 

Published  by  Frederick  A.  Stokes  Company,  New 
York. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

FRANCES  HODGSON  BURNETT 

HALF  a  dozen  plays  and  half  a  hundred  stories 
stand  to  the  credit  of  Frances  Hodgson  Bur 
nett,  born  in  Manchester,  England,  natural 
ized  as  an  American  citizen  in  1905  or  thereabouts, 
the  author  of  Little  Lord  Fauntleroy,  most  famous  of 
children's  stories  by  a  living  writer.  Mrs.  Burnett 
is  a  novelist,  as  such  books  as  The  Shuttle  and  T.  Tem- 
baron  attest.  She  is  thought  of  half  or  more  than  half 
the  time  as  a  writer  of  tales  for  youngsters,  and  right 
ly.  Of  these  she  has  produced  a  great  number  and 
their  success  is  amazing.  No  beating  of  drums,  no 
blasts  on  trumpets,  even  toy  trumpets :  yet  as  the  pub 
lishers  assure  you,  in  respect  of  even  her  less  known 
"juveniles,"  they  keep  on  selling,  year  after  year, 
with  the  most  relentless  endurance.  They  don't  have 
to  be  advertised.  In  the  famous  sentiment  of  a 
famous  advertisement,  they  are  advertised  by  their 
loving  friends. 

The  best  thing  for  the  adult  to  do,  after  paying  his 
tribute  to  Fauntleroy,  is  to  read  The  Shuttle,  "a  novel 
of  international  marriage."  It  represents  Mrs.  Bur 
nett's  life.  She  alone  of  all  the  writers  of  our  day 
could  have  written  such  a  book,  declares  a  friend 
whose  desire  to  remain  anonymous  is  here  observed. 

357 


358  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

He  supplies  a  sketch  of  Mrs.  Burnett  which  had  bet 
ter  be  reproduced  verbatim : 

"She  is  English  of  the  English  by  birth  and  tem 
perament;  born  in  Manchester,  as  you  know,  where 
she  lived  until  she  was  about  thirteen.  Then,  her 
father  having  failed  in  business,  owing  to  the  war  in 
America — his  failure  had  something  to  do  with  the 
blockading  of  the  Southern  ports,  I  believe — and  he 
having  died,  the  business  went  to  ruin,  although  Mrs. 
Burnett's  mother  tried  her  gentle  best  to  save  it. 
There  was  a  large  family  of  them,  and  Frances,  who 
had  already  developed  the  faculty  of  story-telling, 
was  the  life  and  spirit  of  the  crowd. 

"An  older  brother  had  gone  to  join  an  uncle  in 
Tennessee,  and  when  the  family's  fortunes  were  at 
lowest  ebb  he  advised  them  to  join  him  in  America, 
which  they  did,  and  lived  in  the  greatest  poverty  on 
the  outskirts  of  Knoxville.  They  were  so  poor  that 
when  some  one  suggested  that  Frances  write  out  one 
of  her  stories  and  send  it  to  Godey's  Lady's  Book  the 
money  for  the  stamps  had  to  be  earned  by  picking 
blackberries. 

"The  first  story  was  accepted  and  all  subsequent 
stories  sent.  Then  Mrs.  Burnett  graduated  to  Peter 
son's  Magazine.  The  Petersons  were  great  friends 
of  Mrs.  Burnett  in  her  early  days.  They  recom 
mended  that  she  send  some  of  her  stories  to  the  Cen 
tury,  which  she  did,  but  the  quality  of  them  was  so 
English  that  the  Century  editors  suspected  they  were 
not  original  but  copied  by  the  little  Tennessee  girl 
from  stories  in  English  magazines.  When  her  second 
story  was  sent  to  them,  they  gave  expression  to  their 


FRANCES  HODGSON  BURNETT   359 

doubt.  The  thing  was  explained  to  them,  and  the 
publication  of  the  stories — I  believe  the  first  was 
Surly  Tim's  Troubles — was  made  immediately. 

"Mrs.  Burnett  has  always  kept  in  touch  with  Eng 
land  and  English  life.  As  soon  as  she  had  made  her 
success,  in  fact,  just  after  the  publication  of  That 
Lass  o'  Lowrie's,  she  went  back  to  England,  and  has 
spent  some  part  of  nearly  every  year  in  England  since 
then.  She  has  lived  in  all  sections  of  England  and 
has  had  houses  in  London ;  one  at  63  Portland  Place, 
and  another  in  Charles  Street,  Mayfair.  She  has  had 
country  homes  in  Norfolk,  Kent  and  Surrey.  For 
nearly  fifteen  years  she  leased  a  very  interesting  old 
house  in  Kent,  Maytham  Hall,  really  the  manor  house 
of  a  very  ancient  estate.  The  house  stands  in  the 
most  wonderful  of  Kentish  gardens,  which  Mrs.  Bur 
nett,  with  her  enthusiasm  for  gardening,  made  even 
more  beautiful  than  they  were  when  she  took  them. 

"Maytham  Hall  was  the  homestead  of  an  ancient 
family  of  Moneypenneys.  On  the  corner  of  the  Hall 
grounds  stands  an  ancient  Norman  church — the 
church  of  the  Hundred  of  Rolvenden  which  is  men 
tioned  in  the  Domesday  Book.  All  the  Moneypenneys 
are  buried  in  this  church,  which,  in  its  simple  way,  is 
of  remarkable  beauty.  Their  tombstones  surround  the 
great  Hall  pew,  which  is  almost  as  big  as  a  room,  and 
has  tables  and  chairs  in  it.  The  Hall  grounds  stand 
between  two  very  picturesque  villages,  both  appanages 
of  the  estate,  one  called  Rolvenden  Village  and  the 
other  Rolvenden  Street.  They  are  as  picturesque  as 
they  can  be,  full  of  the  quaint  old  gaffers  and  gam 
mers. 


36o  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

"As  to  the  American  side  of  Mrs.  Burnett,  she  has 
lived  over  here  in  touch  with  the  most  characteristic 
ally  and  the  most  broadly  American  society  in  Wash 
ington  and  later  in  New  York  and  its  vicinity.  As  a 
young  girl  she  saw  a  good  deal  of  New  York  life  and 
it  was  during  that  time,  I  imagine,  that  she  got  the 
impressions  that  produced  the  earlier  part  of  The 
Shuttle.  Her  saying  that  she  was  'English  by  birth 
and  American  by  the  birth  of  her  two  sons'  I  have 
always  thought  an  amusing  expression  of  her  case. 
In  describing  Bettina  to  me,  once,  she  said  that  Bettina 
was  a  woman's  version  of  the  cleverness  and  sense 
of  values  that  the  first  Reuben  Vandenpoel  expressed. 
This  seems  to  me  to  be  the  underlying  quality  in  Bet 
tina.  Her  sense  of  the  world  of  things  backed  by 
her  balance,  her  self-control  and  her  typical  Amer 
ican  practicality." 

Mrs.  Burnett  loathes  New  York  for  its  noise  and 
dirt.  Though  she  no  longer  has  Maytham  Hall  with 
its  great  terraced  lawns  and  its  rose  gardens  she  has 
a  big  country  place  near  Manhasset,  Long  Island,  New 
York,  called  Plandome.  It  is  within  commuting  dis 
tance  of  New  York  but  oh,  how  different! 

A  comfortable,  rambling  house  is  surrounded  by 
gardens  for  which  Mrs.  Burnett  buys  flowers  as  un 
controllably  as  a  bibliophile  buys  books.  The  house 
faces  northwest  and  has  "remarkable  glimpses  of  sun 
sets."  Mrs.  Burnett  naturally  has  many  children  as 
visitors.  For  them  there  is  a  great  doll  house,  the 
home  of  Lady  Annabelle,  who  is  larger  than  many  of 
the  youngsters  that  call  on  her,  and  who  has  a  won 
derful  wardrobe.  The  big  house  is  full  of  nests  of 


FRANCES  HODGSON  BURNETT       361 

children's  toys.  It  also  contains  much  age-darkened 
furniture  brought  over  from  Maytham  Hall,  princi 
pally  oak  pieces  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  cen 
turies  which  Mrs.  Burnett  has  collected.  Lady  Anna- 
belle's  residence,  for  example,  was  formerly  a  bread 
and  cheese  cupboard  which  an  antiquarian  would  tell 
you  was  probably  made  by  a  skilled  woodworker  not 
later  than  the  year  1500. 

As  if  visitors  were  not  enough,  in  such  numbers  as 
are  hers,  Mrs.  Burnett  is  always  "neighborizing."  To 
children  who  live  near  by  her  she  read  chapters  of  The 
Secret  Garden  as  they  were  finished.  Now,  she  is  a 
most  skillful  reader.  A  very  little  girl  of  the  lot  sat 
listening  for  hours  on  end.  Impressions  which  flow 
ered  in  The  Secret  Garden  came  from  Maytham  Hall 
where  the  rose  gardens  are  surrounded  by  walls  about 
900  years  old.  Peasemarsh,  Smallhive,  Benenden  are 
the  names  of  towns  not  far  from  Maytham  Hall  and 
all  over  the  countryside  you  may  encounter,  or  could 
not  many  years  back,  children  wearing  red  cloaks 
given  them  by  the  Earl  of  Cranbrook.  And  what  is 
the  secret  of  The  Secret  Garden?  What  does  all  this 
delightful  picturesqueness  enclose?  Why,  an  idea, 
namely,  that  if  a  healthful  thought  be  planted  in  the 
mind  it  pushes  out  unhealthful  thoughts;  and  that  if 
the  body  be  unwell  it  adjusts  itself  to  the  healthful 
thought  and  grows  well.  The  secret  garden  which, 
with  its  roses,  surrounds  the  characters  of  the  story, 
plants  in  their  minds  all  sorts  of  healthful  thoughts. 
Mrs.  Burnett  is  not  metaphysical,  however.  "Her 
roses,  she  declares,  are  always  sincere  and  endlessly 
instructive." 


362  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

She  has  suffered  much  from  people  who  have  in 
terviewed  her  and  have  not  understood  her,  depart 
ing  to  write  what  they  wanted  her  to  say.  She  has  a 
philosophy  but  it  is  written  in  her  books,  definitely  and 
decidedly.  It  has  no  other  existence  and  it  cannot  be 
separated  from  the  tales  which  are  its  embodiment. 
It  is  a  peculiar  characteristic  of  hers  that  the  moment 
an  idea — a  "concept"  philosophically  speaking — for 
mulates  itself  in  her  mind  it  does  so  as  some  part  of 
a  story.  Her  pleasant  persons  and  places  have  as  defi 
nite  ideas  and  theories  and  beliefs  as  the  most  serious 
thesis  but  since  they  never  presented  themselves  ab 
stractly  to  Mrs.  Burnett  they  are  not  so  conveyed  by 
her.  It  is  really  presumptuous,  under  the  circum 
stances,  to  endeavor  to  express  them  abstractly  as 
we  have  just  done  in  the  case  of  The  Secret  Garden. 

This  will  seem  a  hard  saying  to  most  of  us,  who 
are  trained  to  try  to  get  at  the  kernel  of  everything. 
All  modern  education  is  designed  to  teach  men  and 
women  to  think  and  express  themselves  abstractly 
with  ease  and  freedom  and  surety.  Why?  Because 
since  the  Greeks  certain  abstractions  and  abstract 
thought  and  expression  generally  have  been  prized 
as  the  best  and  safest  and  handiest  medium  of  intel 
lectual  exchanges.  They  are  the  intellectual  coinage 
— a  kind  of  verbal  money  that  obviates  the  clumsy 
old  methods  of  barter.  But  while  we  are  all  used  to 
money  and  would  not  do  without  it  we  have  to  re 
member  that  the  majority  of  mankind  still  carries  on 
a  vast  amount  of  intellectual  exchange  by  barter.  You 
tell  me  an  actual  incident  or  a  story  you  have  heard 
and  I  tell  you  what  I  have  experienced  or  heard.  We 


FRANCES  HODGSON  BURNETT   363 

"swap"  experiences  and  knowledge  and  each  benefits 
by  what  he  gets  from  the  other  without  so  much  as 
drawing  a  single  abstract  conclusion  or  generalization. 
The  method  has  its  disadvantages  but  lack  of  interest 
is  not  one  of  them ! 

Understand  this  and  you  understand  Mrs.  Burnett. 
She  is  dealing  with  you  as  you  would  deal  with  your 
neighbor.  You  would  not  go  to  your  neighbor  and 
say:  "It  is  possible  to  live  too  long."  You  would  go 
and  tell  him:  "John  Smith's  mother  isn't  treated  de 
cently.  Yesterday,"  etc.,  and  you  would  relate  the 
actual  occurrence.  He  would  nod.  And  he  would  tell 
you  something  in  exchange.  And  neither  of  you 
would  generalize  about  your  respective  narrations, 
but  each  of  you  would  take  the  lesson  in  them  well 
to  heart.  That  is  the  way  of  the  world  and  of  neigh 
bors.  It  is  Mrs.  Burnett's  easily  comprehended  way 
too. 

When  she  leaves  Plandome  Mrs.  Burnett  consents 
to  spend  a  few  days  in  noisome  New  York — you  can 
buy  things  there,  after  all,  and  editors  and  publishers 
there  do  congregate — and  then  she  flees  to  Bermuda. 
But  not  until  the  last  cosmos  of  autumn  has  perished 
and  gone  and  every  flowerbed  at  Plandome  has  been 
"tucked  in  a  blanket  of  fertilizer."  In  Bermuda  she — 
gardens.  She  imports,  in  times  more  favorable  than 
the  present,  countless  roses  from  England.  Her  Ber 
muda  cottage  is  unpretentious  but  charming. 

To  revert  for  a  moment  to  The  Shuttle,  we  may 
note  something  almost  prescient  in  what  Mrs.  Bur 
nett  said,  in  1907,  about  England  and  America,  in  a 
letter  respecting  this  novel.  She  somewhat  regretted 


364  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

the  characterization  of  the  book  as  "a  novel  of  inter 
national  marriage."  That,  she  argued,  was  hardly 
her  theme.  Of  course  not.  She  has  no  abstract 
themes.  She  wrote: 

"The  subject  (of  international  marriage)  is  an 
enormous  one,  and  if  I  had  written  all  I  have  been 
observing  for  years  and  all  I  should  have  liked  to 
write  I  should  have  made  a  three-volume  novel. 

"When  I  say  'the  subject'  I  do  not  mean  merely  the 
international  marriage  question,  but  the  whole  inter 
national  outlook  upon  a  situation  between  two  great 
countries  such  as  the  history  of  the  world — as  far  as 
I  know  it — has  not  previously  recorded.  The  won- 
derfulness  of  it  lies  in  the  fact  that  two  nations  which 
were  one,  having  parted  with  violence  and  bitterness, 
are  with  a  strange  sureness  being  drawn  nearer, 
nearer  to  each  other.  That  they  are  of  the  same 
blood — the  mere  fact  that  they  speak  the  same  tongue 
— makes  the  thing  inevitable  in  the  end. 

"I  do  not  mean  The  Shuttle  to  be  merely  a  story  of 
international  marriage,  but  to  suggest  a  thousand 
other  things.  The  international  marriage  must,  how 
ever,  result  in  being  a  strong  factor,  and  in  the  hands 
of  a  writer  of  fiction  it  must  play  a  prominent  part — 
a  leading  part,  so  to  speak — because  it  is  the  love 
story,  and  without  it  we  are  lost.  For  the  matter  of 
that,  without  it  'the  shouting  and  the  tumult'  would 
die,  'the  captains  and  the  kings  depart.' 

"Because  I  am  English  by  birth  and  American  by 
a  sort  of  adoption,  and  because  I  have  vibrated  be 
tween  the  two  continents  for  years,  I  have  learned  to 
be  impersonal  and  unpartisan.  I  was  neither  Amer- 


FRANCES  HODGSON  BURNETT       365 

ican  nor  English  when  I  told  the  story.  I  was  merely 
an  intensely  interested  person  who  had  formed  a  habit 
of  crossing  the  Atlantic  twice  a  year. 

"There  have  been  disastrous  international  mar 
riages  and  there  have  been  successful  ones;  there  is 
no  reason  why  there  should  not  be  international  mar 
riages  at  once  dignified  and  splendid — even  history- 
making.  Still,  I  wish  I  had  had  room  to  add  to  The 
Shuttle  pictures  of  the  thousand  other  things  I  find 
absorbing." 

It  is  not  possible  to  do  more  than  make  suggestions 
as  to  what  books  of  Mrs.  Burnett's  a  reader  should  be 
sure  to  dip  into.  No  two  set  of  suggestions  would  be 
identical,  in  all  likelihood,  but  grownups  can  acquire 
at  least  a  respectable  acquaintance  with  her  work  by 
reading  That  Lass  o'  Laurie's,  A  Fair  Barbarian, 
Little  Lord  Fauntleroy,  Sara  Crewe,  The  Pretty  Sister 
of  Jose,  In  Connection  With  the  D$  Willoughby 
Claim,  The  Shuttle,  The  Dawn  of  a  To-M arrow,  The 
Secret  Garden,  T.  Tembaron  and  Emily  Fox-Seton. 
No  selective  list  for  children  is  worth  making;  give 
them  any  or  all! 

BOOKS  BY  FRANCES  HODGSON  BURNETT 

That  Lass  o'  Lowrie's,  1877.    Charles  Scribner's 
Sons,  New  York. 
Dolly,  A  Love  Story,  1877. 
Kathleen,  1877.    Hurst 

Surly  Tim  and  Other  Stories,  1877.    Scribner. 
Haworth's,  1879.     Scribner. 
Louisiana,  1880.    Scribner. 


366  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

A  Fair  Barbarian,  1881.    Scribner. 

Through  One  Administration,  1883.     Scribner. 

Little  Lord  Fauntleroy,  1886.    Scribner. 

Editha's  Burglar.     The  Page  Company,  Boston. 

Sara  Crewe,  1888.     Scribner. 

Little  Saint  Elisabeth,  1889. 

Two  Little  Pilgrims'  Progress,  1896.    Scribner. 

The  Pretty  Sister  of  Jose,  1896.    Scribner. 

A  Lady  of  Quality,  1896.     Scribner. 

His  Grace  of  Ormonde,  1897.    Scribner. 

The  Captain's  Youngest,  1898. 

In  Connection  With  the  De  Willoughby  Claim, 
1899.  Scribner. 

The  Making  of  a  Marchioness  1901.  Frederick  A. 
Stokes  Company,  New  York. 

The  Methods  of  Lady  Walderhurst.    Stokes. 

In  the  Closed  Room,  1904.  Doubleday,  Page  & 
Company,  New  York. 

A  Little  Princess,  1905.     Scribner. 

Jarl's  Daughter,  1906.  Donohue.  Given  in  the 
United  States  Catalogue  of  Books  in  Print  (1912). 

Queen  Silverbell,  1906.  The  Century  Company, 
New  York.  Given  in  the  United  States  Catalogue  of 
Books  in  Print  (1912). 

Racketty-Packetty  House,  1906.  Century.  Given 
in  the  United  States  Catalogue  of  Books  in  Print 
(1912). 

Earlier  Stories  (Lindsay's  Luck,  etc.),  1907.  Scrib 
ner.  Given  in  the  United  States  Catalogue  of  Books 
in  Print  (1912). 

Giovanni  and  the  Other:  Children  Who  Have  Made 


FRANCES  HODGSON  BURNETT       367 

Stories,  1907.  Scribner.  Given  in  the  United  States 
Catalogue  of  Books  in  Print  (1912). 

Emily  Fox-Seton  (Combining  The  Making  of  a 
Marchioness  and  The  Methods  of  Lady  Walderhurst) . 
Stokes. 

Lindsay's  Luck.  Hurst.  Given  in  the  United  States 
Catalogue  of  Books  in  Print  (1912). 

Miss  Crespigny.  Donohue.  Given  in  the  United 
States  Catalogue  of  Books  in  Print  (1912). 

Piccino  and  Other  Child  Stories.  Scribner.  Given 
in  the  United  States  Catalogue  of  Books  in  Print 
(1912). 

Pretty  Pally  Pemberton.  Hurst.  Given  in  the 
United  States  Catalogue  of  Books  in  Print  (1912). 

Quiet  Life.  Donohue.  Given  in  the  United  States 
Catalogue  of  Books  in  Print  (1912). 

Theo.  Hurst.  Given  in  the  United  States  Catalogue 
of  Books  in  Print  (1912). 

Vagabondia.  Scribner.  Given  in  the  United  States 
Catalogue  of  Books  in  Print  (1912). 

The  Shuttle,  1907.    Stokes. 

The  Cozy  Lion,  1907.    Century. 

Good  Wolf,  1908.  Moffat,  Yard  &  Company,  New 
York. 

Spring  Cleaning,  1908.    Century. 

The  Dawn  of  a  To-Morrow,  1909.    Scribner. 

The  Secret  Garden,  1909.    Stokes. 

My  Robin,  1912.    Stokes. 

T.  Tembaron,  1913.  A.  L.  Burt  Company,  New 
York. 

Barty  Crusoe  and  His  Man  Saturday,  1914.  Mof 
fat,  Yard. 


368  THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

One  I  Knew  The  Best  of  All,  1915.    Scribner. 
The  Lost  Prince,  1915.    Burt 
The  Land  of  the  Blue  Flower,  1916.    Moffat,  Yard. 
The  Little  Hunchback  Zia,  1916.     Stokes. 
The  Way  to  the  House  of  Santa  Clous,  1916.   Har 
per  &  Brothers,  New  York. 
White  People,  1917.   Harper. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 


THERE  are  two  actresses  who  are  never  inter 
viewed — Alia  Nazimova  and  Maude  Adams.  At 
least  that  was  true  some  years  ago;  perhaps  it 
is  no  longer  true  of  Nazimova.     But  did  you  ever 
see  an  interview  with  Maude  Adams?     And  yet,  the 
interview  is  one  of  the  most  useful  means  of  securing 
that  publicity  an  actress  must  have.     Exceptions  estab 
lish  the  rule. 

An  author  is  not  in  precisely  the  same  case  with 
an  actor,  but  personal  publicity,  of  an  entirely  honor 
able  and  legitimate  sort,  has  served  most  authors  well. 
The  truth  is,  the  public  has  a  certain  right  in  the 
personality  of  any  one  undertaking  to  serve  or  enter 
tain  the  public;  in  the  words  of  statutes,  a  writer,  like 
an  actor,  is,  to  a  degree,  "charged  with  a  public  in 
terest"  and  the  day  may  come  when  writers,  like 
traction  officials,  will  be  subject  to  public  inquiry. 
Perhaps  Public  Service  Commissions  will  .regulate 
them.  .  .  . 

Until  that  day  we  may  never  know  anything  about 
the  personality  of  Mary  E.  Waller,  about  the  woman 
behind  The  Wood-Carver  of  'Lympus.  For,  in  the 
words  of  her  publishers,  "Miss  Waller  is  singularly 
averse  to  publicity.  She  has  never  permitted  her  por- 

369 


370    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

trait  to  be  published."  As  for  biographical  data, 
meager  is  the  word.  Let  us  see  just  how  scanty  it  is. 

We  know  that  she  was  born  in  Boston  and  that  she 
traveled  and  studied  abroad,  taught  in  a  private  school 
in  New  York  and  later  established  and  maintained  for 
five  years  a  school  for  girls  in  Chicago.  We  know 
that  her  family,  for  four  generations,  has  been  identi 
fied  with  the  history  of  Vermont,  and  that  for  many 
years,  until  she  moved  to  her  present  home  on  the 
island  of  Nantucket,  Miss  Waller  spent  the  greater 
part  of  her  time  with  her  mother  in  the  Vermont  hills. 

That  is  all  any  one  has  so  far  been  authorized  to 
say  of  the  period  before  Miss  Waller's  success  as  an 
author. 

In  1902  there  was  published  in  Boston  a  book  called 
Little  Citizens,  a  story  of  New  York  street  gamins. 
The  following  year  saw  the  publication  of  a  story  of 
family  life  in  the  Green  Mountains.  Of  this  second 
book  by  Miss  Waller,  Margaret  E.  Sangster  said,  five 
years  later  (June  19,  1907)  in  the  Christian  Herald: 

"I  read  the  other  day  the  most  suggestive  book  that 
has  appeared  since  Miss  Alcott  published  Little  Women. 
The  title  of  the  book,  A  Daughter  of  the  Rich,  by  M. 
E.  Waller,  fails  to  convey  an  idea  of  the  striking 
qualities  of  a  most  fascinating  story.  The  scenes  and 
background  of  the  story  are  in  a  mountain  fastness  of 
New  Hampshire,  in  a  home  where  parents  of  culture 
and  piety,  encumbered  by  poverty,  are  successfully 
bringing  up  a  household  of  delightful  boys  and  girls. 
A  city  physician  persuades  the  father  of  an  only 
daughter  to  send  his  delicate  darling  out  of  the  enervat 
ing  atmosphere  of  a  millionaire's  home  that  is  mother- 


MARY  E.  WALLER  371 

less,  into  the  sweetness  and  mother-brooding1  environ 
ment  of  the  home  on  the  mountainside.  The  little 
girl  is  introduced  to  strangers,  who  at  once  become  her 
friends,  and  in  the  novel  situation,  without  a  single 
luxury,  but  in  much  homely  comfort,  she  gains  the 
health  and  strength  that  wealth  could  not  give  her. 

"I  have  it  in  my  heart  to  wish  that  this  book  might 
have  the  vogue  that  Little  Women  had.  The  simple, 
beautiful  story  is  worth  a  thousand  sermons  and 
treatises  on  the  best  way  of  rearing  and  training  a 
family." 

The  Christian  Herald  enters  many  homes  and  Mar 
garet  E.  Sangster  was  read  by  many  thousands. 
There  is  no  way  of  measuring  the  direct  and  indirect 
influence  of  such  praise  as  she  uttered.  It  is  very 
great.  But  this  was  in  1907.  The  year  following  the 
appearance  of  A  daughter  of  the  Rich,  Miss  Waller's 
third  book,  The  Wood-Carver  of  'Lympus,  came  along. 

Books  have  curious  fates.  Gene  Stratton-Porter's 
Freckles  took  three  years  to  find  its  audience.  A  fine 
novel  by  St.  John  G.  Ervine,  Changing  Winds,  was 
published,  had  the  expected  sale  and  died;  remained 
dead  for  about  a  year  and  then  suddenly  began  selling 
again!  In  the  case  of  a  textbook  such  a  phenomenon 
can  always  be  traced  to  some  simple  explanation.  For 
example,  W.  J.  Henderson  wrote  a  condensed  treatise 
called  Elements  of  Navigation  which  sold  desultorily 
for  years,  the  sales  slowly  declining.  Came  the  Great 
War.  The  United  States  undertook  to  create  a 
merchant  marine.  Thousands  of  men  had  to  be  trained 
to  navigate  merchant  ships.  Mr.  Henderson's  book 


372     THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

sold  like  hot  cakes,  was  reprinted;  was  revised  and 
pretty  well  rewritten;  sold  faster  than  fiction! 

In  the  case  of  a  novel  a  "resurrection"  is  seldom 
quite  explicable.  It  is  matter  for  conjecture  what 
"brought  back"  Changing  Winds.  Now  The  Wood- 
Carver  of  'Lympus  was  not  a  book  that  rose  from 
the  dead,  but  a  book  that  almost  never  lived ;  that  is 
to  say,  it  was  six  months  before  it  achieved  popular 
success.  Once  "alive"  it  has  ever  since  remained  so. 
Seven  years  after  publication  the  twenty-eighth  edition 
was  published.  It  is  unnecessary  to  say  more. 

The  catalogue  of  the  American  Library  Association, 
a  conscientious  publication  if  ever  there  was  one,  de 
scribes  this  book  concisely :  "Scene  in  the  Green  Moun 
tains.  An  ambitious  farmer  crippled  in  early  manhood 
finds  interests  in  the  outside  world  through  a  chance 
acquaintance  and  becomes  a  wood-carver  of  renown." 
There  you  are ;  see  what  conscientiousness  can  accom 
plish  !  All  the  charm,  all  the  wistf ulness,  all  the  magic 
of  hope  and  aspiration,  and  the  triumph  of  achieve 
ment,  which  make  this  novel  the  beloved  tale  it  is — 
stripped  away!  "An  ambitious  farmer  crippled  in 
early  manhood  .  .  ."  The  librarians  are  not  to  blame, 
either.  It  is  their  business  to  outline  concisely.  .  .  . 
Whereas  fiction  is  no  matter  of  outlines  but,  like  life, 
a  thing  of  coloring,  perspective,  the  glint  of  an  eye, 
the  shadowed  corner  of  a  smiling  mouth.  Fiction  can 
not  be  done  in  black  and  white ;  those  who,  under  the 
label  of  "realism,"  essay  the  task,  invariably  fail. 

But  we  were  to  enumerate  what  is  known  of  Miss 
Waller.  Well,  in  1913,  after  she  had  been  besieged 
for  nine  years  for  her  picture,  a  visitor  to  Nantucket, 


MARY  E.  WALLER  373 

whither  the  author  had  gone  to  live,  did  succeed  in 
seeing  her  and  talking  with  her.  He  did  not  get  a 
photograph  of  her  (in  the  fall  of  1912  a  photographer 
went  expressly  to  Nantucket  and  lay  long  in  wait 
for  a  snapshot,  coming  away  without  a  single  ex 
posure).  But  at  least  the  visitor  did  see  and  converse 
with  Miss  Waller.  How  came  this  miracle  about? 

There  had  never  been  a  hospital  on  Nantucket, 
spite  of  the  shipwrecks  and  succorings  of  two  cen 
turies.  Certain  residents  decided  it  was  time  one  was 
built.  A  board  of  trustees  was  formed  and  a  house 
purchased.  Money  for  maintenance  was  needed.  So 
they  built  an  enormous  thermometer  on  the  main  street, 
under  overarching  elms.  When  the  visitor  came  to 
trail  Miss  Waller  he  found  the  temperature  about 
$6,800,  which  included  royalties  from  one  of  Miss 
Waller's  books. 

The  hospital  cottage  was  not  new — but  very  solid. 
The  visitor  reflected  that  amid  all  this  white  paneling 
of  the  eighteenth  century  and  mission  oak  of  the 
nineteenth,  other  visitors  would  doubtless  soon  be 
drinking  tea  and  paying  the  cost  of  absorbent  cotton 
and  iron  bedsteads.  Meanwhile  he  was  sufficiently 
grateful  to  be  allowed  to  visit  another  house  and  find 
himself  seated  opposite  Miss  Waller.  She  occupied 
a  chintz-covered  chair  halfway  between  a  flashing  grate 
fire  and  a  row  of  windows.  Mahogany  and  the  im 
plements  of  authorship  were  all  about.  The  mahogany 
was  exceptionally  fine.  Through  the  windows,  marine 
views  and  glimpses  of  moorland — or  what  they'd  call 
moorland  in  an  English  novel.  Talk.  About  the  hos 
pital.  Nothing  about  Miss  Waller.  Nothing  about  her 


374    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

work.  Nothing  about  her  plans.  Yes,  she  lived  on 
Nantucket  the  year  round.  Illness  in  the  family  kept 
her  closely  at  home.  .  .  .  Beyond  question,  there  is 
a  Mary  E.  Waller.  She  is  not  mythical.  Though  she 
may  some  day  be  a  cause  of  controversy.  Let  it  there 
fore  be  set  down  that  Shakespeare,  not  Bacon,  wrote 
Hamlet;  Mary  E.  Waller,  not  Clara  Louise  Burnham, 
wrote  The  Wood-Carver  of  'Lympus. 

And  that  is  all.  No  more  exists.  We  may  say  a 
word  or  two  about  Miss  Waller's  books  since  her  big 
success.  It  will  have  to  be  inadequate  and  sketchy. 
A  Daughter  of  the  Rich  is  technically  described  as  "for 
girls  of  10  and  upward."  Sanna  of  the  Island  Town  is 
a  series  of  pen  pictures  of  incidents  in  the  ordinary 
life  of  an  island  village — Nantucket  is  the  original. 
Through  the  Gates  of  the  Netherlands  is  the  "pleasant 
narrative  of  the  six  months'  experience  in  Holland  of 
an  American  architect  and  his  wife  who  saw  the  coun 
try,  its  art  and  its  people  intimately  and  intelligently." 
We  quote  again  from  the  American  Library  Associa 
tion's  catalogue.  In  epitomizing  this  sort  of  volume 
(travel-educational-gift  book)  see  how  excellent  the 
outline  method  is ! 

Edwin  Markham  liked  Our  Benny,  saying:  "It  is 
fluent  and  simple  and  full  of  a  homely  pathos  and 
humor,  and  it  takes  a  place  next  below  Snowbound  and 
JMyles  Standish."  Caution !  Our  Benny  is  a  narrative 
poem;  there  are  those  who  can't  endure  verse.  They 
may  pass  on  to  Flamsted  Quarries.  This  opens  in 
New  York  City.  A  fatherly  priest  sees  a  child  on  the 
vaudeville  stage  and  takes  her  to  an  asylum  for  home 
less  children.  Later  we  find  them  in  a  small  Maine 


MARY  E.  WALLER  375 

village,  a  quarry  town.  There  is  an  embezzler  in  the 
story  and  the  theme  is  the  power  of  a  simple  environ 
ment,  good,  hard  work  and  honest  love  to  make  men 
and  women  whole. 

My  Ragpicker  is  about  Nanette,  an  appealing  little 
child  of  poverty  in  Paris.  A  Cry  in  the  Wilderness 
has  American  and  Canadian  characters  and  its  scenes 
are  laid  mainly  in  New  York  and  in  a  seigneury  on  the 
St.  Lawrence — Miss  Waller's  first  invasion  of  Canada. 
Aunt  Dorcas's  Change  of  Heart  was  published  by  Miss 
Waller  herself,  in  1913;  doubtless  it  was  an  enterprise 
in  behalf  of  that  hospital  whhh  she  thrust  between  her 
self  and  her  visitor.  From  an  Island  Outpost  is  a 
meditative  book — thoughts  that  came  to  Miss  Waller 
as  she  wrote  from  her  own  island  outpost  on  Nan- 
tucket.  Out  of  the  Silences  is  a  return  to  Canada  and 
a  novel  of  the  Great  War.  The  setting  is  just  over 
the  border  from  Dakota.  The  central  character,  Bob 
Collamore,  an  American  boy,  is  left  as  a  youngster  of 
nine  in  charge  of  William  Plunket,  a  saddle-maker, 
quaintly  philosophical,  broad-minded,  sympathetic,  with 
a  considerable  knowledge  of  the  human  heart.  The 
boy  Bob  grows  up  with  Plunket's  stepson,  McGillie, 
and  the  children  of  the  Cree  Indian  tribe.  He  gets  a 
good  deal  of  the  red  man's  knowledge.  As  he  matures 
the  white  man's  ambition  to  get  out  in  the  world  and 
match  his  wits  against  his  fellows  seizes  him.  He 
goes  forth  confidently,  to  find  that  his  youthful  years 
have  fixed  indelibly  his  ideals,  his  philosophy  and  his 
outlook  on  life.  Love,  romance  and  success  come  to 
him — and  death.  For  the  war  calls  to  his  manhood 
and  takes  him  to  France. 


376    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

An  intermediate  book  may  be  briefly  mentioned.  A 
Year  Out  of  Life  is  only  partly  a  work  of  fiction;  in 
part  it  records  Miss  Waller's  impressions  of  German 
life — long  before  the  war,  of  course,  for  it  was  pub 
lished  in  1909. 

BOOKS  BY  MARY  E.  WALLER 

Little  Citizens,  1902. 

A  Daughter  of  the  Rich,  1903. 

The  Wood-Carver  of  'Lympus,  1904. 

Sanna  of  the  Island  Town,  1905. 

Through  the  Gates  of  the  Netherlands,  1906. 

A  Year  Out  of  Life,  1909. 

Our  Benny,  1909. 

Flamsted  Quarries,  1910. 

My  Ragpicker,  1911. 

A  Cry  in  the  Wilderness,  1912. 

Aunt  Dorcas's  Change  of  Heart,  1913. 

From  an  Island  Outpost,  1914. 

Out  of  the  Silences,  1918. 

Little  Citizens  was  published  by  Lothrop,  Lee  & 
Shepard  Company,  Boston;  Aunt  Dorcas's  Change  of 
Heart  was  published  by  Miss  Waller;  all  Miss  Waller's 
other  books  are  published  by  Little,  Brown  &  Com 
pany,  Boston. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

ZONA  GALE 

MY  dear  Mr.  Overton : — 
"The  first  story  which  I  ever  wrote  was 
printed.  I  printed  it  myself,  in  pencil,  for  it 
was  before  I  could  write.  And  the  story  appeared  in  a 
book.  I  made  the  book,  of  manilla  paper,  bound  with 
ribbon.  The  story  began :  'The  sun  was  just  sinking 
behind  the  western  hills  when  three  travelers  appeared. 
One  was  tall  and  one  was  short  and  one  was  middle- 
sized.'  And  when  the  heroine  arrived  and  one  of  these 
travelers  asked  her  to  marry  him,  I  remember  pressing 
my  mother  to  tell  me  how  to  spell  *N —  yes',  which 
constituted  the  maid's  reply. 

"At  about  the  same  time  I  wrote  a  volume  of  verse 
in  a  blank  book.  One  selection  was  this : 

When  I  am  a  lady,  a  lady 

I  will  be  a  milliner  if  I  can. 

I'll  have  pretty  flowers  and  bonnets  and  hats 

And  in  my  store  there  shall  be  no  mice  and  rats, 

When  I  am  a  lady. 

"When  I  was  thirteen  I  wrote  a  novel,  which  almost 
simultaneously  came  back  to  me  from  a  publisher.  It 
was  called  A  White  Dove,  but  I  do  not  know  what  it 
was  about.  A  few  years  later  I  wrote  another  novel, 

377 


378 

Vedita,  of  tremendous  length — this  is  easy  to  remember 
because  of  the  cost  of  the  type-writing.  It  was  sub 
mitted  to  a  Chicago  newspaper  which  was  offering  a 
prize  for  a  serial.  From  that  manuscript,  which  was 
readily  returned,  I  saved  alive  the  character  of  Nichola, 
an  old  Italian  servant,  whom  I  later  used  in  The  Loves 
of  P  die  as  and  Ettarre. 

"A  short  story  I  first  submitted  at  sixteen — it  was 
called  Both,  was  three  thousand  words  long,  and  I  was 
paid  Three  Dollars  for  it  by  the  Milwaukee  Evening 
Wisconsin.  I  had  just  entered  the  University  at 
Madison,  forty  miles  from  my  home,  but  I  traveled 
the  forty  miles  and  came  home  to  show  the  check,  and 
went  back  in  two  hours.  Excepting  in  the  Milwaukee 
and  Madison  and  Wisconsin  University  newspapers, 
and  one  or  two  evanescent  magazines,  I  never  had  a 
story  accepted  until  1903,  though  for  ten  years  previ 
ous  to  that  acceptance,  by  Success  Magazine,  I  had 
constantly  submitted  stories.  In  1911  the  Delineator 
gave  me  a  first  prize  of  $2,000  for  a  short  story,  The 
Ancient  Dawn.  In  1904  I  began  writing  stories  about 
Pelleas  and  Ettarre,  two  old  lovers,  and  forty  of  these 
were  published  in  a  dozen  magazines,  and  half  were 
collected  in  a  volume  published  by  the  Macmillan  Com 
pany.  These  were  followed  by  Friendship  Village 
stories.  The  first  editor  to  whom  these  stories  were 
submitted  declined  them  with  the  word  that  his  ac 
quaintance  with  small  towns  was  wide  but  that  he  had 
never  seen  any  such  people  as  these.  About  sixty  of 
these  stories  have  been  published  serially,  the  majority 
of  them  now  collected  in  four  volumes,  but  I  am  still 
not  sure  that  the  first  editor  was  not  right. 


ZONA  GALE  379 

"After  graduating  from  Wisconsin  University, 
about  six  years  were  spent  in  newspaper  work,  in 
Milwaukee  and  New  York,  and  in  magazine  work  in 
New  York — and  in  that  time  a  master's  degree  was 
given  by  Wisconsin  University  for  work  done  in  ab 
sentia,  but  neither  degree,  in  itself,  has  ever  meant 
anything  to  me,  though  of  course  that  part  of  the  work 
which  I  liked  and  wanted  was  invaluable.  ...  I  began 
newspaper  work  on  the  Milwaukee  Evening  Wisconsin 
which  accepted  that  first  story  of  mine,  and  I  secured 
a  position  by  attrition.  I  presented  myself  every 
morning  at  the  desk  of  the  city  editor  to  ask  for  an 
assignment,  but  the  chief  thing  that  I  can  recall  about 
those  mornings  was  the  intense  wish  that  the  elevator 
which  was  taking  me  up  to  the  city  room  would  turn 
out  to  be  the  elevator  taking  me  down  again.  At  the 
end  of  two  weeks  the  city  editor  let  me  write  about  a 
flower  show.  I  have  never  put  such  emotion  into  any 
thing  else  that  I  have  written.  I  was  another  month 
in  getting  on  the  staff.  In  New  York  the  process  was 
different.  After  being  refused  by  nearly  every  paper 
there,  I  went  back  to  the  New  York  World,  and  by 
the  office  boy  every  morning  I  sent  in  a  list  of  sug 
gestions,  made  from  that  day's  news,  on  which  I 
thought  I  could  write;  and  the  city  editor  checked 
those  that  I  might  try.  After  a  good  many  weeks  I 
went  on  the  staff  of  the  World. 

"And  all  of  this  was  so  largely  sheer  adventure 
and  pioneering  that  none  of  it  now  seems  to  me  to 
have  been  either  will  or  purpose,  but  pure  delight. 
But  at  the  time  I  was  under  the  illusion  that  I  was 
very  determined. 


380    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

"For  the  last  few  years  I  have  lived  here  with  my 
father  and  mother,  in  the  little  town  where  I  was 
born  and  where  they  have  spent  most  of  their  lives. 
My  mother's  family,  named  Beers,  is  English;  and 
my  father's  family,  English,  of  Scotch-Irish  descent, 
settled  in  Watertown,  Massachusetts,  in  1640,  nine 
generations  ago.  My  great-great-grandfather,  Cap 
tain  Henry  Gale,  led  his  company  against  the  court 
house  at  Worcester,  where  the  supreme  court  was  sit 
ting,  and  demanded  the  repeal  of  the  imprisonment- 
for-debt  law,  just  after  the  Revolution;  and  for  this 
he  was  condemned  to  death,  and  then  reprieved,  and 
removed  to  Vermont.  .  .  .  Here  in  Portage,  in  my 
father's  house,  a  little  river  runs  close  by  the  door, 
and  there  are  lilacs  on  the  bank  and  hills  to  the  south, 
and  there  are  many  wild  birds,  and  squirrels  live  in 
trees  close  to  the  windows.  It  is  true  that  people  love 
to  try  to  make  their  own  surroundings  sound  romantic 
and  unique,  and  hereby,  to  my  own  taste,  I  do  so. 
Here  I  have  written  ten  books  of  fiction,  two  published 
by  the  Bobbs-Merrill  Company  and  all  the  rest  by 
the  Macmillan  Company;  and  a  little  play,  Neighbors, 
published  by  Huebsch. 

"I  have  had  some  years  of  that  passion  for  reform. 
I  was  president  of  a  civic  association  here,  then  chair 
man  of  the  State  Federation's  civic  work,  then  of  the 
national  civic  work  of  the  General  Federation  of 
Woman's  Clubs,  and  on  the  board  of  the  American 
Civic  association.  I  have  resigned  from  everything  in 
favor  of  the  new  democracy.  .  .  .  My  only  executive 
connection  with  any  organization  is  with  the  board  of 
the  American  Union  Against  Militarism.  I  have  been 


ZONA  GALE  381 

a  believer  in  equal  suffrage  since  before  it  was  respect 
able  to  believe.  My  paramount  taste  is  for  poetry. 
At  the  moment  my  chief  admiration  is  for  Russia.  My 
deepest  interest  is  to  find  those  who  feel  something  of 
the  fundamental  truth  underlying  all  religion.  And 
my  recreation  is  talk  with  those  who  believe  with  pas 
sion  in  the  new  industrial  and  social  and  spiritual  To 
morrow. 

"ZONA  GALE." 
"Portage,  Wisconsin. 
"February,  1919." 

Characteristically,  Miss  Gale  says  nothing,  in  her 
reply  to  a  request  for  information  about  herself,  con 
cerning  her  novel,  Birth,  the  book  which  has  not  only 
made  absolutely  necessary  her  inclusion  in  any  record 
of  American  women  novelists,  but  has  placed  her  in 
the  front  rank.  For  however  we  may  array  the  women 
writers  of  the  United  States,  no  one  who  has  read 
Birth  is  likely  to  deny  that  it  possesses  some  of  the 
attributes  of  greatness  and  literary  permanence  or 
that  it  has  "its  share  of  the  qualities  which  lift  writing 
out  of  time." 

Pressed  to  say  what  is  in  her  heart,  Miss  Gale  will 
tell  you  that,  "as  a  matter  of  fact,  Birth  is  really  my 
first  novel.  Since  the  most  fantastic  book  with  which 
I  began,  I  have  never  done  anything  of  novel  length. 
All  my  other  books  have  been  short  stories  threaded  to 
gether,  save  three  stories  of  30,000  words  published 
separately,  in  no  sense  novels.  After  writing  ten 
books,  this  book  is  really  my  first  try  at  a  novel.  .  .  . 
It  is  embarrassing  to  be  caught  looking  in  a  mirror — 


382     THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

or  saying  one's  own  name  aloud  over  the  telephone. 
But  to  try  to  do  both,  in  print,  seems  to  underscore  all 
one's  lacks."  A  very  modest  person,  you  see.  The 
author  of  this  book  is  aware  of  a  certain  injustice 
arising  from  his  inclusion  of  a  number  of  letters.  The 
risk  is  clear.  He  begs  to  say,  here  and  now,  that  he 
assumes  that  risk;  and  he  had  rather  take  the  chance 
that  readers  may  suspect  some  of  his  subjects  of  self- 
consciousness  than  encounter  the  certainty  that  they 
will  think  these  authors  hardly  human — names  on  title- 
pages  merely. 

When  Birth  appeared  some  people  were  bewildered. 
One  reviewer  asked  pathetically  what  had  become  of 
the  Zona  Gale  of  Friendship  Village.  But  those  whose 
saturation-point  for  sentimentality  is  decidedly,  and, 
as  we  believe,  healthfully  low,  gave  a  great  shout  of 
satisfaction  to  which  added  sounds  of  admiration 
formed  a  contrapuntal  bass.  For  Birth  is  a  thing 
Thomas  Hardy  would  not  be  ashamed  to  put  his  name 
to.  Nor,  we  suspect,  George  Meredith,  either.  We 
like  to  think  that  were  George  Eliot  living  to-day,  and 
mistress  of  the  art  of  fiction  (which,  bless  her,  she 
never  was)  she  would  have  written  such  a  book. 

The  fact  that  at  this  writing  Birth  has  not  been 
"discovered"  by  the  large  public  which  such  a  book 
ultimately  commands  is  of  little  importance.  That 
will  come.  The  failure  of  many  book  reviewers  and 
book  reporters  to  detect  and  proclaim  its  distinction 
is  an  indictment  of  book  "reviewing"  more  specific  and 
damning  than  any  generality  in  which  we  might  in 
dulge.  The  real  elements  of  the  book's  excellence 
may  best  be  recorded  in  the  words  of  a  daughter  of 
Henry  Mills  Alden,  Constance  Murray  Greene,  who 


ZONA  GALE  383 

said  (Books  and  the  Book  World  of  The  Sun,  New 
York,  November  24,  1918)  : 

"The  charm  consists  in  delightful  and  continuous 
humor,  often  sharp  and  never  overkind,  which  isn't 
at  all  what  people  mean  by  'charming'  in  the  new  and 
popular  sense.  But  here  is  the  real  substance  of  things 
more  to  be  desired  than  the  fine  gold  of  sunshine. 
Miss  Gale  is  incurably  funny  and  we  love  her  for  it — 
witness  the  delivery  horse,  'hanging  out  its  tongue, 
not  at  all  because  of  fast  driving  but  from  preference,' 
and  Mis'  Henry  Bates,  whose  stomach  wouldn't  allow 
her  to  drink  coffee.  'She  always  spoke'  (to  quote 
directly)  'as  if  her  stomach  stood  back  of  her  chair.' 
.  .  .  Birth  achieves  the  rare  result  of  being  both  mys 
tical  and  colloquial."  How? 

You  may  well  ask.  The  setting  is  a  tiny  Wisconsin 
town,  except  for  some  scenes  in  Chicago.  The  "hero" 
is  a  traveling  salesman  handling  pickle  and  fruit 
products ;  insignificant ;  with  long,  thin,  freckled  wrists 
and  a  coat  that  gave  the  effect  of  blowing  when  there 
was  no  wind;  with  no  graces.  You  sicken  over  the 
little  man's  humiliations  in  such  social  life  as  Burage, 
Wisconsin,  boasted.  He  marries  a  girl  of  the  village, 
a  girl  of  some  social  gifts  and  quite  ordinary  and  silly 
feminine  ambitions — and  becomes  a  paperhanger, 
though  knowing  nothing  of  the  business.  Barbara  Pitt, 
Marshall  Pitt's  wife,  is  dropped  abruptly  from  the 
story — daring  technique  but  justified  in  the  result — 
and  the  novel  develops  as  a  narrative  of  the  life-rela 
tion  of  father  and  son.  This  little  man,  this  Mar 
shall  Pitt,  being  human,  had  his  immortal  moments. 
Zona  Gale  can  put  them  on  paper: 

"It  was  in  this  manner  that  their  child  was  born. 


384     THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

There  he  was,  sentient.  A  rift  in  experience,  the 
crossing  of  the  street  by  Barbara  at  one  moment  rather 
than  the  next;  the  opening  of  a  gate  by  Pitt  in  the 
afternoon  instead  of  the  morning.  Then  joy,  ill,  the 
depths,  madness,  flowing  about  the  two.  These  passed 
but  there  remained  the  child — living,  exquisite,  sturdy, 
sensitive,  a  new  microcosm,  experiencing  within  him 
self  the  act  of  God." 

Prose?  Poetry!  Deep  and  vibrant  music.  It  has 
the  austere  beauty  and  the  imaginative  content  of 
Johann  Sebastian  Bach — say  the  Chaconne  in  D  minor. 

"Love  is  a  creative  force,"  says  Mrs.  Greene  in  the 
article  we  have  already  quoted,  "and  though  Marshall 
Pitt  had  been  unable  through  the  inarticulate  material 
in  which  his  soul  was  embodied  to  fashion  himself  in 
any  accordance  with  his  blurred  hopes,  he  could  by 
virtue  of  his  great  love  for  Barbara  and  their  child 
offer  to  Jeffrey  [his  son]  the  inspiration  lacking  which 
his  life,  even  to  his  last  heroic  act,  ha4  seemed  a  futile 
thing.  In  dying  because  he  lacked  cleverness  to  see 
the  means  of  escape,  to  save  the  only  living  thing  that 
had  loved  him  in  return,  he  made  his  last  awkward 
gesture  that  of  rescuing  a  dog!"  We  may  quote  the 
passage,  condensed  slightly: 

"They  carried  Pitt,  and  in  his  arms  was  a  white 
Marseilles  spread  in  which  he  had  swathed  the  little 
dog.  The  spread  was  burning,  Pitt's  hair  was  burning 
and  the  thin  cotton  of  his  shirt  was  all  burned  away 
about  his  throat  and  breast  and  blazed  upon  his 
shoulders. 

"They  laid  him  on  the  ground  and  the  people  beat 
out  the  flames.  As  the  fire  was  quenched  there  was  a 


ZONA  GALE  385 

terrific  commotion  in  the  white  Marseilles  spread. 
Out  leaped  Jep,  not  a  silken  hair  on  him  singed,  and 
he  snapped  indignantly  at  having  been  caused  intoler 
able  inconvenience.  .  .  . 

"  'Well,  but  of  all  the  fool  things.  For  a  dog' .  .  ." 
"It  is  Miss  Gale's  own  personality,  her  style  and 
wealth  of  wit  which  remain  in  our  memory,"  Mrs. 
Greene  decides,  "and  however  proper  a  respect  we  may 
feel  for  the  deeply  impressive  study  of  the  influences 
in  the  life  of  Jeffrey  Pitt,  we  leave  the  book  with  a 
certain  guilty  sense  of  having  enjoyed  it  too  much." 
Which  is  a  matter  of  temperament,  of  course.  It  is 
not  the  least  of  this  fine  novel's  qualities  that  it  plays 
on  many  strings  of  the  heart  and  mind. 

BOOKS  BY  ZONA  GALE 

Romance  Island,  1906. 

The  Loves  of  Pelleas  and  Ettarre,  1907. 

Friendship  Village,  1908. 

Friendship  Village  Love  Stories,  1909. 

Mothers  to  Men,  1911. 

Christmas,  1912. 

When  I  Was  a  Little  Girl,  1913. 

Neighborhood  Stories,  1914. 

Heart's  Kindred,  1915. 

A  Daughter  of  Tomorrow,  1917. 

Birth,  1918. 

Romance  Island  and  A  Daughter  of  Tomorrow  are 
published  by  the  Bobbs-Merrill  Company,  Indianapo 
lis;  Miss  Gale's  other  books  are  published  by  the  Mac- 
millan  Company,  New  York.  A  one-act  play,  The 
Neighbors,  is  published  by  B.  W.  Huebsch,  New  York, 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

MARY  HEATON  VORSE 

THERE  have  been,  and  are,  those  who  doubt 
whether  anything  good  can  come  out  of  Green 
wich  Village.  It  would  possibly  be  unfair  to  cite 
Mary  Heaton  Vorse  as  an  answer  to  these  doubters. 
In  spite  of  the  fact  that  she  once  lived  in  Greenwich 
Village  it  is  greatly  to  be  doubted  if  the  woman  who 
could  write  The  Prestons  was  ever  of  it.  John  Reed 
gives  a  brief  verbal  picture  of  Mary  Heaton  Vorse 
entirely  surrounded  by  Greenwich  Villagers  and  ciga 
rette  smoke,  seated  on  the  floor,  doing  several  things 
at  once  and,  despite  a  deafening  chatter  from  the  girls 
with  the  bobbed  hair  and  the  boys  with  the  flowing 
ties,  dictating  a  short  story  with  the  utmost  calm,  speed 
and  concentration.  She  dwelt  among  highly  trodden 
ways — and  took  her  own  track. 

As  a  short  story  writer  Mary  Heaton  Vorse  is  of 
the  first  importance  in  any  survey  of  contemporary 
American  writers.  As  a  novelist  she  shares  with  Zona 
Gale  the  distinction  of  being  put  on  the  map  by  a 
single  superb  book.  As  a  personality  she  is  alive  and 
present  to  any  one  who  ever  has  met  and  talked  with 
her.  Corinne  Lowe  had  a  phrase  likening  her  to  a 
Botticelli  painting.  Benjamin  De  Casseres  describes 

386 


MARY  HEATON  VORSE  387 

her  by  her  voice,  insists  that  it  is  the  one  thing  making 
the  striking  first  impression  and  lingering  in  the  mem 
ory  like  lovely  music.  I  wish  now  that  I  had  set  down 
the  precise  and  extraordinary  words  in  which  Mr.  De 
Casseres  extemporized  his  picture  of  the  woman  by  the 
mere  description  of  her  speech — its  timbre  and  "tone 
color,"  as  musicians  would  say.  No  paraphrase  will 
serve;  the  reader  will  have  to  take  on  faith  an  asser 
tion — here  made  quite  simply — that  this  woman  of  the 
memorable  voice,  the  isolation  in  the  midst  of  the 
crowd  and  the  face  of  sympathy  and  comprehension 
is  a  woman  of  no  common  endowment. 

But  that,  doubtless,  would  be  evident  to  any  one 
reading  The  Prestons.  Its  author  is,  at  the  present 
writing,  in  Rome;  in  February,  1919,  she  said  in  a 
letter  to  Boni  &  Liver ight,  publishers  of  The  Prestons: 

"I  wish  you  wanted  a  book  about  Italy  and  industrial 
conditions  here  for  next  fall  instead  of  a  sequel  to 
The  Prestons.  You  do  not  know  how  happy  it  makes 
me  to  learn  that  over  10,000  copies  of  The  Prestons 
have  been  sold  since  you  published  it  in  December. 
I  am  frank  to  confess  that  this  is  a  larger  sale  than  any 
other  two  of  my  books  enjoyed  in  so  short  a  time. 

"I  love  The  Prestons — all  of  them,  even  Piker,  the 
dog,  and  it  warms  my  heart  in  this  cold  Italian  villa 
to  learn  that  not  only  the  American  public  but  the  critics 
have  spoken  of  my  book  as  a  really  fine  and  true  inter 
pretation  of  American  family  life.  But  I  cannot 
promise  the  sequel  to  The  Prestons." 

A  month  later  she  was  yielding.  She  would  have 
a  sequel  ready  for  fall,  on  conditions.  .  .  . 

The  truth  about  The  Prestons  is  this:     Hardly  ^ 


388    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

man  or  woman  will  be  able  to  read  it  and  not  close  the 
book  saying  to  himself,  "Well,  the  American  family  is 
a  pretty  good  sort  of  an  institution,  after  all!"  No 
finer  tribute,  we  venture  to  believe,  could  be  paid  to 
a  book — to  any  book. 

The  book  was  welded  together  from  a  series  of  short 
stories.  Note  the  word,  "welded."  Most  novels  made 
up  of  short  stories  are  a  poor  patchwork.  Here  there 
was  an  actual  fusion.  The  result  is  a  novel,  and 
nothing  else. 

So  important  is  this  book,  so  pleasant,  so  inspiringly 
hopeful  in  the  feeling  with  which  it  leaves  you,  that 
we  may  justifiably  disregard  Mary  Heaton  Vorse's 
other  writings  for  the  sake  of  concentrating  on  this 
one  narrative.  I  can  only  repeat,  with  a  slight  re 
arranging  for  the  sake  of  emphasis,  what  I  wrote  at 
the  time  of  the  book's  publication,  which  was : 

Perhaps  the  nature  of  the  book's  impression  on  the 
reader  is  due  to  its  very  inclusiveness.  It  really  doesn't 
arrive  anywhere  except  at  the  end  of  427  pages  and 
of  one  or  two  years  of  normal  American  existences. 
No  great  tragedy  stains  its  pages;  there  is  no  love 
story.  Nothing  comes  to  a  decisive  denouement;  we 
recall  not  a  single  "climax"  except  those  little  social 
climaxes  which  occur  in  the  best  regulated  families. 
The  only  things  that  happen  are  Henry's  irritation  with 
his  twelve-year-old  son,  Jimmie;  Jimmie's  unconquer 
able  attempts  to  be  allowed  to  do  something  that  the 
grown-ups  are  sure  to  call  getting  into  mischief ;  seven 
teen-year-old  Osborn's  adventures  of  the  heart;  the 
changing  absorptions  of  Edith,  a  high-school  girl ;  the 
trials  of  Maria,  Mrs.  Preston's  unmarried  sister  who 


MARY  HEATON  VORSE  389 

lives  with  the  family,  and  the  philosophical  outgivings 
of  Seraphy,  for  eighteen  years  the  family  servant  and 
shield  and  friend. 

Not  much  of  anything  happens,  you  may  think;  well, 
perhaps  not;  but  you  will  not  be  able  to  leave  the 
Prestons  until  the  last  page  has  been  turned.  You 
will  laugh  unnumbered  times  as  you  turn  the  pages; 
you  will  be  touched  more  than  once  as  you  read.  Quite 
unreasonably,  no  doubt,  you  will  fall  in  love  with  them 
as  a  family,  from  Aunt  Maria  to  Piker,  the  dog.  They 
are  so  much — you. 

It  is  quite  impossible  to  do  much  more  with  a  book 
like  The  Prestons  than  to  convey  the  nature  of  the 
story  and  the  character  of  its  telling.  It  is  related  by 
Mrs.  Preston  and  it  starts  with  her  exploration  of  the 
house  on  a  summer  morning.  She  comes  first  upon  the 
dog  Piker.  Piker  is  lying  on  a  silk  wrap  of  Edith's. 
"He  is  a  long  dog,  modeled  after  the  graceful  pro 
portions  of  a  barrel.  At  every  corner  nobby  legs  are 
put  on,  dachshund  fashion.  His  sparse  yellow  bristles 
are  always  coming  out  all  over  everything.  .  .  .  His 
tail  is  long  and  thick  and  makes  a  noise  like  a  police 
man's  club  when  he  raps  it  on  the  floor." 

On  the  piazza  were  lemonade  glasses,  "some  of  them 
left  on  the  floor  where  they  could  quite  easily  be  stepped 
upon."  Edith's  friends.  The  mother  takes  them  to 
the  kitchen,  bright  and  spotless,  Seraphy's  domain.  In 
the  library  lying  on  the  floor  is  Jimmie's  notebook  con 
taining  his  observations,  as  a  naturalist,  on  guinea  pigs. 
They  read: 

"2  P.  M. — Guinea  pigs  sleeping. 

"2  130  P.  M. — Still  sleeping. 


390    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

"3  P.  M. — Running  around  cage  (I  poked  them 
with  a  stick). 

"3:15  P.  M.— Eating. 

"Note :  Guinea  pigs  eat  with  persistence. 

"Note:  The  habits  of  guinea  pigs  is  monotonous." 

Whereupon  "I  saw,"  records  Jimmie's  mother,  "by 
this  notebook  that  Jimmie  had  again  been  misled  by 
one  of  those  glittering  books  by  naturalists  where  all 
the  high  points  of  a  year's  study  are  compressed  into 
one  short  article.  He  still  touchingly  believes  the 
things  he  reads  in  books." 

She  passes  on.  "Now  my  eyes  lit  upon  an  ash 
tray.  In  it  were  the  ashes  of  a  cigar  and  of  three 
cigarettes.  I  had  gone  to  bed  leaving  Osborn  and  his 
father  in  the  library.  Osborn  is  my  oldest  son,  who 
is  going  to  college  next  year.  I  stood  and  smiled  over 
this  telltale  tray.  Osborn  and  his  father  were  smoking 
together  and  Henry  was  apparently  keeping  from  my 
idealistic  nature  the  sad  fact  that  my  son  smoked." 

She  wonders  if  her  sister,  Maria,  knows  that  Osborn 
smokes.  Maria  believes  that  "almost  everything  can 
be  secured  by  two  mysterious  processes.  One  is  known 
as  Nipping  Things  in  the  Bud  and  the  other  is  Taking 
Steps."  And  having  straightened  up  the  house,  the 
mother  sits  out  in  the  fresh  morning  air  musing  until 
various  sounds  denote  the  beginning  of  the  family's 
day  and  the  necessity  of  getting  ready  for  breakfast. 

Of  all  the  surprising  affairs  in  which  the  youthful 
Jimmie  had  a  hand  we  think  the  affair  of  the  fat  little 
Baker  boy  the  most  amusing.  "We  was  in  the  swing," 
Jimmie  explained  to  his  mother,  "and  I  butted  Ed  in 
the  belly." 


MARY  HEATON  VORSE  391 

"  'He  hit  him  in  the  abdomen/  corrected  the  Baker 
girl. 

"  'I  have  always  been  very  particular,'  Mrs.  Baker 
announced,  'Mrs.  Preston,  about  the  language  my  chil 
dren  use,  as  you  can  see  for  yourself.  You  heard  how 
Jimmie  referred  to  Edward's  abdomen.  He  has  used 
that  word  at  least  six  times  in  the  last  five  minutes; 
and  that,  Mrs.  Preston,  I  cannot  stand.  I  will  have 
my  home  kept  refined  and  I  say  no  home  can  be  re 
fined  where  vulgar,  common  words  are  in  daily  use/ 

"To  this  I  found  nothing  to  say  but  'Come  home 
with  me,  Jimmie.' 

"On  the  way,  'Have  I  got  to  say  "abdomen"?'  he 
asked.  'Say,  have  I?' 

"I  took  refuge  in  the  cowardly  woman's  evasion.  'I 
don't  think  that  there's  the  slightest  need  of  your  using 
either  of  those  terms  ever/  I  replied. 

"Maria,  who  had  heard  the  last  words,  said :  'Yes, 
I  should  think  one  could  find  pleasanter  topics  of  con 
versation,  Jimmie/ ' 

The  trouble  was  that  within  a  day  or  two  four  little 
boys,  friends  of  Jimmie's,  with  their  arms  around  each 
other's  necks,  insisted  on  marching  up  and  down  the 
street  chanting  in  a  derisive  sing-song : 

"Mr.  and  Mrs.  Domen  and  Ab  Domen, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Domen  and  Ab  Domen, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Domen  and  Ab  Domen." 

They  were  audible  even  while  Mrs.  Baker,  very 
flushed  and  angry,  called  on  Mrs.  Preston,  desiring  her 
to  Take  Steps.  The  passage  along  the  street  of  the 
fat  little  Baker  boy  occasioned  loud  cries  of  "Here 


392    THE  WOMEN  WHO  MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

comes  Ab!  Hello,  Ab!  There's  Ab  Domen!"  We 
will  only  say  further  of  this  diverting  and  entirely 
truthful  episode  that  it  had  an  amazing  sequel. 

Jimmie,  who  cannot  be  convicted  of  having  con 
spired  to  fasten  upon  young  Edward  Baker  a  nickname 
at  once  refined  and  unusual,  was  more  or  less  respon 
sible,  we  fear,  for  his  aunt's  finding  herself  unable  to 
open  the  bathroom  door  after  he  had  repaired  and 
oiled  all  the  locks  in  the  house.  He  was  blameless  of 
the  thefts  of  what  the  family  called  "nether  under 
garments"  from  the  neighbors'  clotheslines.  Here 
Maria  played  detective,  though  the  discovery  of  the 
culprit  was  mostly  luck. 

We  may  laugh  over  these  things  in  a  book  and  learn 
the  better  to  laugh  over  them  in  life,  even  when  we 
are  cast  for  the  uncomfortable  roles  in  their  enaction. 
But  we  should  not  like  to  be  the  reader  who  may 
laugh  at  such  chapters  as  those  which  tell  of  young 
Osborn's  first  attachment  to  the  ideal,  as  embodied  in 
a  certain  Miss  Fairweather,  some  years  older  than  he. 

This  is  a  book  which  takes  its  place  with  the  best 
of  Tarkington  and  with  the  earlier  Howells.  For 
breadth  of  understanding,  accuracy  of  observation, 
fidelity  of  reporting  it  is  not  easy  to  think  of  an 
American  novel  that  transcends  it. 

Mrs.  Vorse  was  born,  in  New  York,  Mary  Marvin 
Heaton,  daughter  of  Hiram  Heaton  and  Ellen  Cor 
delia  (Blackman)  Heaton.  She  was  educated  abroad. 
She  was  married  on  October  18,  1898,  to  Albert  White 
Vorse,  and,  secondly,  in  1912,  to  Joseph  O'Brien.  She 
is  correctly  Mrs.  Joseph  O'Brien. 


MARY  HEATON  VORSE  393 

BOOKS  BY  MARY  HEATON  VORSE 

The  Breaking-In  of  a  Yachtsman's  Wife,  1908. 

The  Very  Little  Person,  1911. 

The  Autobiography  of  an  Elderly  Woman,  1911. 

The  Heart's  Country,  1913. 

The  Ninth  Man, 

The  Prestons,  1918. 

The  Prestons  is  published  by  Boni  &  Liveright,  New 
York. 


Date  Due 


NOV     7  1 

977 

»OV  1 

7  19779 

qcr  1  4  1 

1$ 

UPP    1 

fl/\R  ?•  9  w 

H 

H' 

R  2  ^  198 

U    v  1)   Pwv 

MAK 

L  S  1983 

B  1983 

NOV  1 

1985 

Library  Bureau  Cat.  No.  1137 

is- 1 


ML  BOOK  SERVICE 

5  FOURTH  AVE. 


3  1210  00395  6115 


